A Brooklyn-based, ASJA award-winning author, journalist, and independent historian, Jessica DuLong collaborates with writers and authors as a book/proposal doctor, editor, and writing coach on narrative works concerning trauma, psychology, and neuroscience; memoir, history, and health; race, equity, and cross-cultural connection; as well as gender, parenting, and justice.

She lectures internationally about narrative craft, book development, and the intersections of trauma and journalism, among other subjects (Fortellingens kraft, Gerard van Westerloolezing, The Power of Narrative, Fullbright Specialist), and has taught writing with Voices From War and The Sackett Street Writers Workshop.

DuLong’s latest book (published under her own name), SAVED AT THE SEAWALL: Stories from the September 11 Boat Lift (Three Hills/Cornell University Press, 2021) is the definitive history of the largest maritime evacuation in history—larger even than boat lift at Dunkirk.

SAVED AT THE SEAWALL reveals the dramatic story of how the New York Harbor maritime community delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm’s way. Even before the US Coast Guard called for “all available boats,” tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had sped to the rescue from points all across New York Harbor. In less than nine hours, captains and crews transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan.

Anchored in eyewitness accounts and written by a mariner who served at Ground Zero, SAVED AT THE SEAWALL weaves together the personal stories of people rescued that day with those of the mariners who saved them. DuLong describes the inner workings of New York Harbor and reveals the collaborative power of its close-knit community.

Her first book, MY RIVER CHRONICLES: Rediscovering the Work that Built America; A Personal and Historical Journey (Free Press), explores the value of hands-on work through memoir, history, and reportage. Lauded in The New York Times as “very fine and gutsy,” My River Chronicles won the 2010 American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award for memoir. Gay Talese called the book “elegantly written,” adding that it “carries forward the craft of literary non-fiction with grace and energy.”