McNamer is on the fiction faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars' MFA program, and previously taught in the Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) program at the University of Montana, Missoula,.
McNamer has written several novels, including Critic Sven Birkerts: "Red Rover" is suggestively compressed in its way of paying out revelations, which steadily gather mass and shadows.
McNamer's way of combining her far-flung episodes effectively triangulates the unknowable event at the heart of the novel; we work out much of the drama through a kind of echolocation."
The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Artforum all named Red Rover to their "Best Book" of 2007 lists.
McNamer's stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Doubletake, and The New York Times Book Review.