Kass Fleisher

Helen Kassia Fleisher (October 21, 1959 – January 6, 2023) was an American writer.

Biography Fleisher was born on October 21, 1959, in Wilmington, Delaware. She earned a BA in English from Dickinson College in 1981, a MA from the University of North Dakota in 1989, and a PhD from Binghamton University in 1993. In 2003, she began teaching creative writing at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. Fleisher was married to Joe Amato from 1995 until 2013. She died on January 6, 2023, at her home in Normal, Illinois.

Fleisher's first book, The Bear River Massacre and the Making of History (2004), examines both the events and the cultural forgetting of the 1863 Bear River Massacre. The book is organized in three parts. The first section is a synthesis of historical records about the event, titled "What (We Think) Happened". The longer second section, "The Making of History", follows Fleisher's eight-year research process as she interviews local historians, members of the Shoshone, and residents who oppose the memorial. Accidental Species: A Reproduction (Chax Press, 2005) The Adventurous (Factory School, 2006) Talking out of School: Memoir of an Educated Woman (Dalkey Archive Press, 2008) Dead Woman Hollow (SUNY Press, 2012) Editor, with Caitlin M. Alvarez. Litscapes: Collected US Writings 2015 (Steerage Press, 2015)