Jen Silverman
Photo by Zackary Canepari
Bio
Jen Silverman is the author of the story collection The Island Dwellers (Random House, 2018; longlisted for the PEN/ Robert W. Bingham Prize) and debut novel We Play Ourselves (Random House, 2021). Plays include Witch; Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties; The Roommate;and The Moors—they have been produced off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally, and are published with Concord Theatricals (US), Oberon Books (UK), and S. Fischer Verlage (Germany). Stories and essays have appeared in Vogue, the Paris Review Daily, Ploughshares, the Gettysburg Review, the Sun, and LitHub, among others. Silverman holds degrees from Brown University, the University of Iowa, and Juilliard. Silverman is a three-time MacDowell fellow, and the recipient of an New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council fellowship, and the Yale Drama Series Award judged by Marsha Norman. Silverman also writes for TV and film.
Often as artists—and as humans—we are told to pick a lane and stay in it. Fluidity, whether related to artistic practice, nationality, gender, or sexuality, is time and again seen as a thing to fear and mistrust. I’m a genderqueer writer raised across a multiplicity of countries: for my whole life, fluidity has been my constant. And as someone who began as a playwright, I’ve sometimes felt like an interloper in the world of fiction—am I really allowed to do this? This vote of confidence from the National Endowment for the Arts feels like a resounding Yes, and comes at a particularly meaningful moment in which I am beginning my second novel. After two years of navigating the pandemic, this support is a profound gift, both financial and spiritual. During my fellowship I will complete the first draft of my new book, set partly in the neighborhood of Paris where I lived as a child. This will allow me to set aside time to write and travel for research. And when those late nights come where I stare at an uncooperative page and ask myself if I really am a novelist, my new answer will be: “At least the NEA thinks so.