Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel is an American author whose work has prominently featured in literary magazines such as ZYZZYVA, where excerpts of Headshot first appeared. Though Headshot is her first novel, Bullwinkel had previously published a book of short stories entitled Belly Up (2018), for which she received the Believer Book Award.

Bullwinkel participated in competitive sports throughout her school career. Playing on her school’s basketball team gave her an early taste of the national tournament circuit. Her main sport, however, was water polo; she was co-captain of her high school’s top-20-ranked team. Bullwinkel cites these experiences as part of the impetus for her novel: “I had all of these memories about being a young, competitive youth athlete, and I had no idea who that person was […] I wanted to write into that kind of confusion” (Blough, Jessica. “Talking with Rita Bullwinkel.” Alta, 2024).

Bullwinkel chose boxing as the subject of her novel because of its natural theatricality, which would help convey clashes as duels between psyches. Since Bullwinkel never boxed growing up, she based her research on training videos she saw on YouTube (Simon, Scott. “Rita Bullwinkel Talks About Her Novel ‘Headshot’ and Writing About Women’s Boxing.