“North of the Sunlit River is a beautiful meditation on grief, resilience, and the quiet threads that bind us—to each other and to the wondrous natural world. Klagmann perfectly captures complicated characters with aching beauty. This book is unforgettable, and it will stay with me always.”
―Crissy Van Meter, author of Creatures
“At once mystical and firmly grounded in nature, North of the Sunlit River takes the reader on a journey into the Alaskan tundra… Klagmann's characters are beautiful, flawed, and curious, their relationships rich and complicated, their secrets compelling. This book is beautifully written and unlike anything else I've read; I could not put it down.”
―Suzy Krause, author of I Think We’ve Been Here Before
“At once haunting and visionary, Jessica Bryant Klagmann’s This Impossible Brightness asks us to consider ghosts in their many forms―literal ghosts, the ghosts of grief that follow all of us, and the ghost of a present-but-disappearing earth amid climate devastation. In the face of sweeping loss, this novel resists despair by weaving an expansive web of interconnectedness and also of hope. Klagmann’s debut is both wildly imaginative and gorgeously moving.”
―Anne Valente, author of Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down
“In the eyes of This Impossible Brightness, humans bear a particular mark of distinction, one that’s spiritual or psychological rather than physical. We are the species that tries to change direction in midair; we attempt, impossibly, to take our fall and transform it into an ascent. Jessica Bryant Klagmann’s writing seems motivated by this same desire. Everywhere in her novel’s pages, you sense some force yearning to turn the future into the past―to forestall the autumn of the world, spin it around, and allow it to burst into spring. Through her focus on this effort, she produces a feeling that’s sustained and powerful, a clear-eyed grief leavened by a mad hope.”
―Kevin Brockmeier, author of The Ghost Variations
JESSICA BRYANT KLAGMANN studied writing in Fairbanks, Alaska. Every good idea she’s ever had came while running, so she tries to stay within sight of a mountain or canyon trail at all times. She lives with her husband and two kids in northern New Mexico.
Jessica’s work has been published in environmental journals like Whitefish Review, Terrain.org, and others. Her debut novel, THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS, was published in 2024. Her second novel, NORTH OF THE SUNLIT RIVER, was released in 2025.
Extended bio here.