About Judith Stiles

Judith Newcomb Stiles earns her living as a potter, turning mud into money in the guise of colorful utilitarian pots that last ten thousand years. Throwing on the wheel has given her plenty of head space to write a novel about all the naughty people of Wellfleet on Cape Cod, where she lives. HUSH LITTLE FIRE - coming 2025. Alcove Press, is a Penguin Random House pick for Spring Reads. As a side hustle, she writes for the Italian publication YtaliGLOBAL about all things American. Other work has been published in the anthology Hemingway Shorts, honorable mention Kenyon Review, The Ex-Puritan, ROOM Magazine (first place award for 2024 Creative Non-Fiction Essays) and The New York Times.

In her work as a potter, Judith Stiles works with the finest Georgia Kaolin and hand-mixed oxide to create vibrant ceramic glazes on functional forms.

"I am fascinated with all the subtle colors hidden in the surfaces of grey and brown buildings in New York City, and then I am amazed to see these colors and textures in a different context, found all over again in the seascapes of Wellfleet on Cape Cod."

As a graduate student in the M.F.A. program at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst, she studied the chemistry of glazing under one of the leading experts in the country, Prof. Susan Parks. She went on to teach ceramics on the faculty of Skidmore College and Pratt Art Institute, where she headed the Ceramics M.F.A. program. She received a Ford Foundation Grant to teach pottery in a Massachusetts women's prison, the York Street Jail. Following this period of teaching, she opened an independent studio ceramics business in Soho, New York, in partnership with John O'Hara. From this studio, the colorful and functional ceramics were sold all over the country, Europe, and Japan through fine shops, department stores, and galleries. Besides receiving praise from publications such as: The New York Times, The New Yorker, Metropolitan Home, Architectural Digest, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, Stiles won the prestigious ROSCOE Award for Excellence in Design, in competition with Ralph Lauren and Marimekko. In 2008, Stiles opened The Newcomb Hollow Shop in Wellfleet on Cape Cod where she throws pots in the same building where her great-grandmother, Mary Newcomb, was born. 

Contact:

Agent: Adriana Stimola@Stimola Literary Studio

adriana@stimolaliterarystudio.com

Author: Judith Newcomb Stiles@Newcomb Hollow Shop

stilesjudith@gmail.com

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