Jennifer Steil

Adjunct Instructor

Jennifer Steil is an award-winning author and journalist. Her new novel, Exile Music, just released by Viking last month, follows the lives of a family of Austrian Jewish musicians who seek refuge from the Nazis in Bolivia in 1938. Critics write that "in a sea of Holocaust literature, 'Exile Music' stands out as wholly original and engaging."

Her most recent novel, The Ambassador’s Wife (Doubleday 2015), won the 2013 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Best Novel award and the 2016 Phillip McMath Post Publication book award.

It was shortlisted for both the Bisexual Book Award and the Lascaux Novel Award. The novel has received much acclaim, notably in the Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and The New York Times Book Review. Jennifer’s first book, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (Broadway Books, 2010), a memoir about her time as editor of the Yemen Observer newspaper in Sana’a, was hailed by The New York Times, Newsweek, and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Her freelance work has appeared in the New Orleans Review, Saranac Review, New Orleans Review, World Policy Journal, The Week, Time, Life, Peauxdunque Review, The Washington Times, Vogue UK, Die Welt, New York Post, The Rumpus, Readers’ Digest Version, ivillage.com, Irish National Radio, France 24 (English), CBS radio, AARP The Magazine, and GRN Global Reporter Network Service.

Educational Background

BA, Theater
- Oberlin College
MFA, Creativing Writing/Fiction
- Sarah Lawrence College
MS, Journalism
- Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Selected Awards

Winner, Best Novel, 2013 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition, for The Ambassador’s Wife
Finalist, Bisexual Book Award for Fiction 2015, for The Ambassador’s Wife
Finalist, Lascaux Novel Prize 2015, for The Ambassador’s Wife
Residency, Writers Omi at Ledig House, Ghent, NY, April 25-May 15, 2014

Selected Publications

Steil, Jennifer. The Ambassador’s Wife. Doubleday, 2015.
Steil, Jennifer. The Woman Who Fell from the Sky. Broadway Books/Random House, 2010.
“Fault Lines by Jennifer Steil.” Liars' League.
“Writing Tips from Jennifer Steil, Author of The Ambassador's Wife: Penguin Random House.” PenguinRandomhouse.com.