Writers in residence 2017
About writers in residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation during the year 2017…
Philip BOEHM, USA
Philip Boehm is the author of numerous translations from Polish and German. Based in St. Louis, he is also a playwright and theater director, and the founding Artistic Director of Upstream Theater. Original works include Mixtitlan, Return of the Bedbug, Alma en venta and Soul of a Clone.
For his translations he has received numerous grants and award including fellowships from the NEA and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, as well as awards including the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize, the ALTA National Translation Award, the ATA Ungar Award, the PEN USA Translation Award, the Schlegel-Tieck Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize.
Philip Boehm will devote his time as writer in residence to his translation of an Aleksander Fredro’s book Zemsta.
Photo © Sophie Kandaouroff
Nancy CAMPBELL, United Kingdom
Nancy Campbell is a poet, essayist and publisher of artist’s books. A graduate of Oxford University (BA Eng. Lit.). Her work responds to cultural and climate change in Arctic environments. Her books include How To Say ‘I Love You’ In Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet which won the Birgit Skiöld Award (2013) and Disko Bay (shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, 2016). Her research has benefited from residencies at institutions in the USA, Greenland and Iceland.
Nancy Campbell will devote her time as writer in residence to her translation of Songs from Ammassalik, Greenland.
Photo © D.R.
Caractères mobiles collective, Switzerland
Benjamin PECOUD, Mathias HOWALD & Catherine FAVRE
Chroniques de Montricher is the latest in the series of live writing events that the Caractères mobiles collective has held over the past two years. The aim is to introduce the practice of writing to order at live events to a given space – the village of Montricher. The collective will request commissions from the locals, creating a literary map of the area.
At the end of the period of residence, the texts will be handed over to their “owners” and published in an anthology.
http://www.caracteresmobiles.ch
Photo © D.R.
Pierre CENDORS, France / Ireland
Pierre Cendors, born in 1968 in the Alpine village of Ambilly, is half-French and half-Irish. His Irish background has bred in him a love for the elemental, dense, wild landscape that inhabits his poems and novels. His most recent works are Minuit en mon silence (Le tripode, 2017), Archives du vent (Le tripode, 2015), shortlisted for the Prix Wepler 2015 and currently in the running for the Prix Lettres Frontière 2016, and L’invisible dehors, carnet islandais d’un voyage intérieur (Isolato, 2015).
Pierre Cendors will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Chefs d’œuvre invisibles.
Photo © D.R.
Kristen COSBY, USA
“As a girl, I had several lives. I lived aboard a sailboat, as an ex-pat in Budapest at the end of the Cold War, and on a dead farm in New Hampshire. This odd childhood left me prepared for three career paths: writer, pirate, or spy. Since I’m rather timid, I chose writer. My essays and stories have been published in several literary journals and anthologies. I am now attempting to complete my first book.»
Kristen Cosby will devote her time as writer in residence to her project The Thirty-Nine-Foot World.
Photo © D.R.
Richard DE GRIJS, Netherland
Richard de Grijs obtained his PhD from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) in 1997 and held postdoctoral positions at the Universities of Virginia (USA) and Cambridge (UK) before being appointed to a permanent post at the University of Sheffield (UK) in 2003. He joined the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University in 2009 as a full professor. An experienced author, to date he has published more than 140 research articles and a scientific monograph (2011).
Richard de Grijs will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Longitude at Sea : Navigation in the 17th Century.
Photo © D.R.
Maximilian GILLESSEN, Germany
Maximilian Gillessen, born in 1988, studied philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the Freie Universität in Berlin, graduating with a Master’s degree. In 2014, he co-founded the publishers zero sharp with the typographer Anton Stuckardt. Since then, Maximilian Gillessen has devoted his time to translating French authors such as Raymond Roussel, Jean-Pierre Brisset and Gaston de Pawlowski. He is currently translating works by René Daumal and René Crevel.
Maximilian Gillessen will devote his time as writer in residence to his translation of a Michel Carrouges’s book Les Machines célibataires.
Photo © D.R.
Julie IROMUANYA, USA
Julie Iromuanya is the author of Mr. and Mrs. Doctor (Coffee House Press), a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, and the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize for Debut Fiction. She was the Herbert W. Martin Fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Dayton and earned her B.A. at the University of Central Florida and her M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She teaches at the University of Arizona.
Julie Iromuanya will devote her time as writer in residence to her project A Season of Light.
Photo © D.R.
Taran KHAN, India
Taran Khan is a journalist and non-fiction writer based in Mumbai. She grew up in Aligarh,(India) and was educated in Delhi and London. She writes on gender, Islam, popular culture and cinema. From 2006 she traveled frequently to Kabul, where she worked closely with Afghan filmmakers and journalists. Her work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony and the Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council.
Taran Khan will devote her time as writer in residence to her project Walk in Kabul.
http://www.porterfolio.net/taran
Photo © D.R.
Marc LATHUILLIÈRE, France
Paris-based multimedia artist and frequent traveler Marc Lathuillière misuses photography to explore the representation of contemporary societies, both in their roots and their mutations. Political and anthropological, his work aims at deconstructing cultural boundaries and the stereotypes they create. Often influenced by literature, his approach also involves art curation and writing. In 2012, Ithaca, a program of four solo exhibitions in La Rochelle, was conceived in reference to Homer and James Joyce. In 2014, Musée national, his 10 years series on France, was published with a foreword by Michel Houellebecq, while he curated the writer’s first solo show in Paris Month of Photography. He is currently working on an exhibition with anthropologist Marc Augé in Marseille.
Marc Lathuillière will devote her time as writer in residence to his project Territorisme.
Photo © D.R.
Amanda LEE KOE, Singapore
Amanda Lee Koe is the fiction editor of Esquire Singapore, and a 2013 Honorary Fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Born in Singapore and based in New York, her first short story collection Ministry of Moral Panic won the Singapore Literature Prize and was for shortlisted for Haus der Kulturen der Welt’s Internationaler Literaturpreis.
Amanda Lee Koe will devote her time as writer in residence to her debut novel, a project about performance and time.
Photo © D.R.
Perrine LE QUERREC, France
Perrine Le Querrec was born in 1968 in Paris, where she lives, works, and writes.
She also writes in lighthouses, on floors, in brothels, and in psychiatric hospitals. She writes in jolts, tracing out her own language in pursuit of reticent words. She publishes poetry, novels, and pamphlets and studies the world’s archives as a guide to shaping her own life.
Perrine Le Querrec will devote her time as writer in residence to her project La construction.
http://www.perrine-lequerrec.fr/
Photo © D.R.
Tess LEWIS, USA
Born in 1964, Tess Lewis is a writer and translator from French and German. She has been awarded grants from PEN and the NEA, the Austrian Cultural Forum Translation Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is an advisory editor for The Hudson Review and writes essays on European Literature for a number of journals including The Hudson Review, World Literature Today, The American Scholar, and Bookforum. In 2014 and ‘15, she curated Festival Neue Literature, New York’s premiere festival of German literature.
Tess Lewis will devote her time as writer in residence to her translation of a Ludwig Hohl’s Book Die Notizen.
Photo © D.R.
Mikolaj LOZINSKI, Poland
Mikołaj Łoziński is a writer, photographer, and recipient of Kościelski Award 2007 and Paszporty Polityki Award in 2011. He was born in 1980 in Warsaw. He studied sociology and completed his MA degree at the Sorbonne University in Paris. He was employed as Polish-French translator for Arte Télévision. His debut novel Reisefieber was released in 2006. His second novel The Book was published in 2011. Reisefieber and The Book were translated into several European languages.
Mikolaj Lozinski will devote his time as writer in residence to his project The Stramer Family.
Photo © D.R.
Thor MAGNUSSON, Iceland
Thor Magnusson is a lecturer in Music at the University of Sussex. His work focusses on the impact digital technologies have on musical creativity and practice, explored through software development, composition and performance. He is the co-founder of ixi audio, and has developed audio software, systems of generative music composition, written computer music tutorials and created two musical live coding environments. He writes about music and performs regularly around the world.
Thor Magnusson will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Sonic Writing.
Photo © D.R.
Christophe MANON, France
Born in Bordeaux in 1971, Christophe Manon now lives in Paris. He has published some twenty books including Univerciel (Nous, 2009), Testament, d’après François Villon (Léo Scheer, 2011), Cache-cache (Derrière la salle de bain, 2012), Extrêmes et lumineux (Verdier, 2015), the collectively authored En procès (Inculte, 2016), Le flot continu et imperceptible du temps… (Littérature mineure, 2016) and Au nord du futur (Nous, 2016). He regularly reads aloud from his work at literary events. He was awarded the Prix SGDL Révélation for 2015.
Christophe Manon will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Jours redoutables.
Photo © Ma. del Rayo Reyes Osorio
Philippe RAHMY, Switzerland / Egypt
Philippe Rahmy is a poet and writer, born in Geneva in 1965. He divides his time between Switzerland and Argentina. He studied Egyptology at the Ecole du Louvre and literature and philosophy at the University of Lausanne. He is a founder member of the literary creation and criticism website remue.net. His texts have been published in France, Switzerland, America, Italy, and China.
His two most recent publications are Béton armé (La Table ronde 2014, commended by the judging panel for the Prix Wepler and awarded the Prix Michel Dentan) and Allegra (La Table ronde 2016, awarded the Prix Rambert).
Philippe Rahmy will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Pardon pour l’Amérique.
Photo © D.R.
Dan RICHARDS, Wales
Dan Richards was born in Wales in 1982 and grew up in Bristol. He has a BA in English Lit & Philosophy from The University of East Anglia & an MA from Norwich Arts School. He is co-author of Holloway with Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood (Faber 2013), The Beechwood Airship interviews, a book about the art & creative process (HarperCollins 2015), and Climbing Days, an exploration of the writing & climbing lives of his great great aunt & uncle – Dorothy Pilley and I.A. Richards (Faber 2016).
Dan Richards will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Outpost.
Photo © D.R.
Tomasz ROZYCKI, Poland
Tomasz Rozycki (b. 1970) is a poet, critic, and translator who lives in the Silesian city of Opole, in southwestern Poland with his wife and two children and teaches French Language, Culture and Literature at the University of Opole. He is a member of the Jury of the Koscielski Prize (Switzerland) and le Prix du Jeune Ecrivain in France.
Tomasz Rozycki will devote his time as writer in residence to his project Corners, The Guidebook.
Photo © D.R.
Thomas SANDOZ, Switzerland
The writer and epistemologist Thomas Sandoz (born in 1967), who holds a PhD in psychology, has published novels, essays, and academic works with Swiss and French publishers including Grasset, Le Seuil, and Presses Universitaires de France. Alongside his writing, he regularly takes part in cultural and literary outreach events and workshops and carries out expert assessments in the field. He has won a number of prizes, most notably the Prix Schiller for Même en terre (Grasset) in 2011.
Thomas Sandoz will devote his time as writer in residence to his project La Ballade des perdus.
Photo © D.R.
Aude SEIGNE, Switzerland
Aude Seigne, born in Geneva in 1985, studied French literature and Mesopotamian civilisations at the University of Geneva. Her published works include Chroniques de l’Occident nomade (Paulette then Zoé, 2011), which won the Prix Nicolas Bouvier at the Etonnants Voyageurs literary festival in Saint-Malo, France. In 2012 she was awarded a cultural grant by the Fondation Leenaards for her book, Les Neiges de Damas (Zoé, 2015).
Aude Seigne will devote her time as writer in residence to a technologic novel’s project.
Photo © Steeve Iuncker-Gomez
Tanya SHADRICK, United Kingdom
“As a writer and former hospice life-story scribe, I work in public spaces to encourage creative responses to our lives and times. As 2016/17 writer-in-residence for Pells Pool in Sussex – the UK’s oldest lido – I’m writing a mile of longhand on pool-length scrolls. My quiet, kneeling presence beside so much physical endeavour invites pool-goers to think about the tone and discipline required for a similarly well-regulated inner life: work that has resonated far beyond the pool itself.”
Tanya Shadrick will devote her time as writer in residence to her project A wild patience: Laps in Longhand.
Photo © D.R.
Laura VAZQUEZ, France
Laura Vazquez was born in 1986 and lives in Marseilles. In 2014 she was awarded the Prix de la Vocation for her book La main de la main, forthcoming from Cheyne.
Her texts, À chaque fois, and Le système naturel et simplifié, and Menace are published by Derrière la salle de bains ; her book Oui. at Plaine page. Les fils, written with Simon Allonneau, was just published by Bêta publishing.
She is co-editor of the journal Muscle.
She is also a performance poet, having read her work at a number of sites and festivals, she regularly publishes videos of these performances on the internet.
Her texts are translated into Chinese, Italian, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch and German.
Laura Vazquez will devote her time as writer in residence to her project Remonter la pierre.
http://www.lauralisavazquez.com
Photo © D.R.
Takashi WAKAMATSU, Brazil
Takashi Wakamatsu is a farmer and writer, born in 1976 in São José dos Campos, in the state of São Paulo in Brazil, to Brazilian and Japanese parents. He left school at seventeen to work in Japan for eighteen months. On his return home, he travelled widely before settling in the Amazon region. He has lived there for seven years now, dividing his time between farming, reading, and writing.
Takashi Wakamatsu will devote his residency to a translation of Jean-Pierre Brisset, Les origines humaines.
Photo © ATLAS
Antonio XERXENESKY, Brazil
Antônio Xerxenesky (1984) is a Brazilian fiction writer and translator. Considered by the british Granta magazine one of the twenty best young Brazilian novelists, Xerxenesky is the author of two novels, most recently F (2014), whose movie rights have been sold to RT Features. The novel was translated into French by Asphalte Editions and was nominated for the prestigious Prix Médicis. Xerxenesky has also published two short story collections and many essays on literature and cinema. As a translator from English and Spanish to Portuguese, Xerxenesky has translated important authors such as Enrique Vila-Matas and Adolfo Bioy Casares. He is currently working on a PhD thesis at Universidade de São Paulo (USP).
Antonio Xerxenesky will devote his time as writer in residence to his project O mundo para nos.
Photo © Rafael Roncato
Aisha ZIA, United Kingdom
Aisha Zia is an award-winning playwright based in London. Her first produced play Our Glass House was awarded a Special Commendation from Amnesty International at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2013. No Guts, No Heart, No Glory, won The Scotsman Fringe First in 2014, was part of the Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre, screened on BBC4 and is published by Oberon Books. She has an MA in Creative Writing, and also works as a freelance photo editor for the Financial Times and New Statesman.
Aisha Zia will devote her time as writer in residence to her project Bhutto.
http://commonwealththeatre.co.uk
Photo © D.R.
