CV

I was born in Galena, Illinois, USA and grew up in New York City, where I attended Hunter College High School. I graduated with honors from the University of Chicago in 1995 (AB General Studies in the Humanities), where I studied creative writing with Richard Stern. Since 1995 I have lived in Berlin as a writer and translator.

Since 2005 I have written mainly in German and published stories in various literary magazines. From 2006-2008 I co-edited the lauter niemand magazine; from 2006-2016 I co-edited no man’s land, an annual online magazine for new German literature in English. In 2013, I was a co-organizer of the initiative “Writers Against Mass Surveillance” along with Priya Basil, Ilija Trojanow, Juli Zeh, and others.

Fellowships, Workshops and Prizes

2015: Wolfgang Hilbig’s The Sleep of the Righteous longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award, finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction.

2014: Franz Fühmann’s The Jew Car shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize

2013: PEN/Heim Translation Fund Award for the translation of Franz Fühmann’s At the Burning Abyss.

2012: Fellowship from the Kunststiftung NRW at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium Straelen (Translation project: Wolfgang Hilbig, “I”).

2009:  Literaturpreis Prenzlauer Berg, 3rd place for the story “Natascha nascha”. Writing residency at the International Writers’ and Translators’ Centre of Rhodes.

2004:  Fellowship from the StiftungKulturfonds at Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop for the translation project Boys and Murderers by Hermann Ungar.

2003: Sommerakademie für Übersetzer, Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

2001/2005:  Scholarships for the “Summer Literary Seminars” in St. Petersburg, Russia. Writing workshops with Maxine Chernoff, Stephen Elliott and Ron Carlson.