Writing Alumna Jenessa Abrams ’17 (SPS ’19) has been awarded a prestigious National Book Critics Circle Emerging Critics Fellowship.
The NBCC Emerging Critics Fellowship is an annual award that funds each writer in the form of free NBCC membership, admission to events, as well as Q&As, professional development advice, one-on-one guidance from board members, and craft lectures via Zoom.
According to the NBCC website, the fellowship engages critics of varying degrees of experience and is a participatory, interactive program focused on dialogue.
Upon completing her MFA in Fiction and Literary Translation, Jenessa Abrams earned an MS in Narrative Medicine at Columbia in the School of Professional Studies, where she currently teaches. Her Narrative Medicine education has influenced her commitment to support overlooked and underrepresented voices in her book coverage. Abrams’ early ventures into literary criticism included debuts from independent presses, with a focus on short story collections. Among these debuts were acclaimed works by Mary South ’14 and Jamel Brinkley.
Abrams’ literary criticism has been published in The Atlantic, Guernica, Words Without Borders, The Los Angeles Review, The Chicago Review of Books, BOMB Magazine, and The Millions, among others. Her work is often concerned with illness, trauma, violence, sexuality, and gender. She is currently at work on a debut novel exploring how childhood relationships influence adult ones, centering on caregiving and reproductive health.
“I am very grateful to the National Book Critics Circle Foundation for this honor,” Abrams writes. “It’s a privilege to share the space with my fellow Emerging Critics and to have the opportunity to deepen my craft alongside many literary heroes. I am particularly appreciative of NBCC Board Member Adam Dalva who is a kind and generous supporter of writers."
