In July, American writer Jenny Offill will be living in the Amsterdam writers’ residence of the Dutch Foundation for Literature. She is currently working on her fourth novel. She will also be interviewed on Tuesday the 5th of July in De Balie in Amsterdam.
Photo © Michael Lionstar
Jenny Offill (1968) published three novels to critical acclaim. Her debut novel Last Things was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the L.A. Times First Book Award. Her second book Dept. of Speculation was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review. In 2020 her novel Weather was published and shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize to fiction. All three novels have been published in a Dutch translation by Roos van de Wardt by De Geus publishers
During her residency, Offill is working on a fourth novel, working title Wild Dogs Everywhere, about a woman who tries to shape her life after her child has started living on her own and her parents moved in with her.
In addition to novels, Offill has written four children’s books and co-edited two anthologies of essays with Elissa Schappell: The Friend Who Got Away, about the broken friendships of twenty women, and Money Changes Everything, about the influence of money on the lives of 22 authors. She also works as a creative writing teacher in the US and Canada, at Brooklyn College, Syracuse University and in the low residency programme at Queens University.
Interview
On Tuesday 5 July, Offill will be a guest at De Balie in Amsterdam, where she will be interviewed by Ianthe Mosselman about her books, writing practice and characters. The evening will be opened by Marjolijn van Heemstra, Amsterdam’s city poet. More information about the evening (starting at 20:30) and tickets via the website of De Balie.
Writing residency Amsterdam
Since 2006, the Dutch Foundation for Literature has been welcoming foreign authors to its writer’s residence on the Spui in Amsterdam, in the literary heart of the city. Dozens of writers from all over the world have been inspired by this place during their stay. Polish author Olga Tokarczuk, whose oeuvre earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2019, worked on her 2018 Man Booker International Prize winning novel Flights, John Green wrote his multi-award winning and adapted YA novel The fault in our stars, and the young Israeli author Nir Baram embarked here on the highly acclaimed World shadow.
See also
- Read more about the different writing residencies of the Dutch Foundation for Literature;
- In conversation with Jenny Offill in De Balie
- The website of Jenny Offill
