About Jen

Baltimore City - Highlandtown A&E District
Jen Michalski lives in Baltimore. A four-time Pushcart nominee, she was voted one of "50 Women to Watch" by The Baltimore Sun, "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine (Best of Baltimore issue, 2013), and one of the best authors in Maryland by CBS News.

Her debut novel THE TIDE KING was published by Black Lawrence Press (2013; winner of the Big Moose Prize, City Paper Best of , 2013) and her second novel, THE SUMMER SHE WAS UNDER WATER, by Black Lawrence Press (2017). She is the author… more

The Tide King (novel, Black Lawrence Press, 2013)

Jen Michalski’s debut novel, The Tide King, was winner of the 2012 Big Moose Prize from Black Lawrence Press. In 2013, it was voted “Best Book” by The City Paper and also earned Michalski the title “Best Writer” in Baltimore Magazine’s “Best of Baltimore” issue. In 2016, The Tide King was a First Place Winner in the Somerset Awards.

REVIEWS

"It's likely that this book will finally make Michalski known to the wider world-in a big way. Seriously, if I weren't entirely averse to all attempts to predict the future, I would say this book will be huge. But there's no accounting for people's tastes, so I will say instead, with some certainty, that it will be important." - Baynard Woods, The Baltimore City Paper

"Though admirably multidimensional, Michalski never fails to tell compelling stories capable of challenging and surprising readers. That readership figures to grow substantially if she continues producing work of this caliber." - Baltimore Magazine

"Jen Michalski's long-awaited novel, winner of the Big Moose Prize, promises to be an important book in the American lexicon." -  The Baltimore Sun

"The Tide King is a complex book that examines both the evils that people can do to one another, as well as the beauty that is possible." -  Fjords Review

ABOUT THE TIDE KING:

Stanley Polensky and Calvin Johnson serve in Germany during World War II. Calvin, near death after being shelled, is given a bewitched herb by Stanley but then left for dead. Each soldier returns from the war and years pass. Calvin, discovering that he cannot age and cannot die, searches for Stanley to get answers.

Michalski's The Tide King is the story of burnette saxifrage, an herb rumored in Polish folklore to provide those who eat it with immortality, and its effects on three generations of a Polish family over two continents beginning in 19th-century Poland and ending in 1976 America.

But it is also the story of young men’s sacrifice during great wars, of a young child's experiences during the holocaust and being a war orphan, of the curiosities of the American century, such as 1950s country music and smoke jumpers in the Montana mountains and 1970s New York. Just as Viking king Cnut, who was rumored to be so powerful that he controlled the tides at his feet, discovered “how empty and worthless is the power of kings,” Calvin Johnson and others cursed by the herb find in The Tide King that the power of youth and immortality is an empty gift, for they will continually witness the death of their families, lovers, dreams, and ideals.


"The Art of Promotion," Interview in 2014 Writers Market
  • The Tide King (Black Lawrence Press)
    The Tide King (Black Lawrence Press)
    "In the midst of creating this large and momentous story, Michalski manages a truly magnificent feat: I believed every word." - The Center for Fiction
  • The Tide King Novel.pdf
    The novel The Tide King (Black Lawrence Press, 2013)
  • Jen Michalski, Best Writer, 2013, Baltimore Magazine
    Jen Michalski, Best Writer, 2013, Baltimore Magazine
    Though admirably multidimensional, Michalski never fails to tell compelling stories capable of challenging and surprising readers. That readership figures to grow substantially if she continues producing work of this caliber." - Baltimore Magazine, Best of Baltimore, 2013
  • CP Best of Balt The Tide King.jpg
    CP Best of Balt The Tide King.jpg
    "Best Fiction," Best of Baltimore, City Paper 2013 - "Michalski joined the big leagues with this stupendous novel whose magical realism is heavy on the realism as she follows her characters through war, love, and a cross-country country-music tour. Gorgeous. We’re lucky to have Michalski before the rest of the world discovers her. But they will."
  • Somerset.jpg
    Somerset.jpg
    The Tide King won First Place in Category Winner in the 2016 Somerset Awards, which recognizes emerging new talent and outstanding works in the genre of Contemporary/Literary Fiction.
  • Baltimore Sun profile.png
    Baltimore Sun profile.png
    "For Jen Michalski, A Prolific Year," Baltimore Sun. "I've always felt that I'm one pane removed from everything, like I'm walking around in a bubble or behind a sheet of glass. Writing is my way of asking, "How do I get out?""
  • The Motions of the Human Heart - A Conversation with Jen Michalski
    The Motions of the Human Heart - A Conversation with Jen Michalski
    Both “I Can Make It to California Before It’s Time for Dinner” and “May-September” were the first times I approached stories through language first — my first instinct is to use simile, metaphor, sentence structure. In the novellas, it was more of an effect of synesthesia — certain words had a certain color, weight, texture. - Fiction Writers Review http://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/the-motions-of-the-human-heart-a-conversation-with-jen-michalski/
  • The Tide King on Maryland Morning
    The Tide King on Maryland Morning
    Jen Michalski speaks with Tom Hall, host of WYPR's "Maryland Morning," about her debut novel, The Tide King. http://programs.wypr.org/podcast/tide-king

The Summer She Was Under Water (novel, QFP 2016/Black Lawrence Press 2017))

Michalski's second novel, The Summer She Was Under Water, was published by Queens Ferry Press in August 2016 and then acquired by Black Lawrence Press in December 2017.  Baltimore Magazine said of Summer, "Through Michalski's unusual and but effective structure and her insightful and deeply personal writing, we begin to understand just how much strength it takes for a personal to peel back the layers of a troubled past."  Baltimore Magazine also picked Summer as one of its favorite books of 2016.
  • Summer She Was Under Water front only for screen.jpg
    Summer She Was Under Water front only for screen.jpg
    "Through Michalski's unusual and but effective structure and her insightful and deeply personal writing, we begin to understand just how much strength it takes for a personal to peel back the layers of a troubled past." -- Baltimore Magazine
  • The Summer She Was Under Water Novel.pdf
    novel, The Summer She Was Under Water (Queens Ferry Press, 2016)
  • Baltimore Magazine Interview Michalski Baker.jpg
    Baltimore Magazine Interview Michalski Baker.jpg
    "It wasn’t the book I started out to write." Interview with Baltimore Magazine
  • The Hard Truths of Writing: Incest in Fiction
    The Hard Truths of Writing: Incest in Fiction
    "But what is our responsibility, as writers, to our subject matter and our readers? In an age when authors are also marketers, when staking out a niche and becoming the definitive book in that market is imperative, is it irresponsible to write a book about incest when I am not a survivor of one?" essay, "The Hard Truths of Writing: Incest in Fiction," The Nervous Breakdown http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/jmichalski/2016/08/the-hard-truths-of-writing-incest-in-fiction/
  • Baltimore Magazine 2016 Best Books.png
    Baltimore Magazine 2016 Best Books.png
    Favorite Books of 2016, Baltimore Magazine (http://www.baltimoremagazine.net/2016/12/20/my-favorite-books-of-2016): "Jen Michalski has proved herself a timeless storyteller again and again, and her latest book is no exception."
  • Ploughshares review.png
    Ploughshares review.png
    Review in Ploughshares (http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/review-the-summer-she-was-under-water-by-jen-michalski/): "Jen Michalski’s second novel is an intense emotional commitment, but a worthwhile one."
  • rumpus review.png
    rumpus review.png
    "Nothing is as it seems in Jen Michalski’s latest novel, The Summer She Was Under Water. Michalski integrates this tension between the real and the illusory into every dimension of a story that spirals unrelentingly toward the truth." -- the Rumpus
  • Reading at NYC Salon.png
    Reading at NYC Salon.png
    Video of NYC Sunday Salon reading for The Summer She Was Under Water, December 10, 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KcAXBHW68U).

From Here (stories, Aqueous Books, 2014)

The twelve stories in From Here (a 2015 USA Book Awards finalist, Short Fiction) explore the dislocations and intersections of people searching, running away, staying put. Their physical and emotional landscapes run the gamut, but in the end, they’re all searching for a place to call home.

The stories in From Here will take you by force, like “little bombs exploding in your back and stomach.” Their “dense, packed progressions” will devastate you, will absolutely “jackpot your heart,” and you will want to “stay really, really quiet” and “very, very still” until you feel stronger, or at least strong enough to “withstand a hurricane.” I am in love with these stories, the “pink-dark dusk” of the “living, breathing questions” they ask of us, and I am utterly and jaw-droppingly in awe of Jen Michalski’s tender and ruthless “love for the difficult.”
—Molly Gaudry, author of We Take Me Apart

Jen Michalski’s characters seem to breathe through the pages of this emotionally expansive collection. Each story is a world in which the reader will linger—not to seek refuge but to gain insight, and perhaps, find a kindred soul.
—Dawn Raffel, author of The Secret Life of Objects, In the Year of Long Division, and others

From Here slices at the myths of All-Americana and delivers instead heartfelt stories that mirror America’s contemporary epidemic of neglect—neglect of others and of the self. The desires of the main characters in From Here are invariably in conflict with the desires of their loved ones, and of their souls. This is a collection of brokenness that cuts, of characters desperately trying to clean up the mess. Unlike so many of these struggling but striving characters, however, Jen Michalski, the writer and the heart, knows what truly needs attention.
—Ethel Rohan, author of Goodnight Nobody

Oh to be Jen Michalski and conjure characters so real that your stories never truly end, each a novel-in-waiting. Readers must check their sentimentality at the door. Here there be monsters: fires, miscarriages, attempted suicides, abortions, dead rabbits, cancer, and a trip to Disney World. Reminiscent of Armistead Maupin’s work, From Here is a sometimes stark, totally honest, vivid collection of twelve stories featuring wounded, curious, lost, and hungry people, none of whom are poised to take over the world. Still, Michalski’s compassion, geographic palette (Baltimore, New Mexico, Southern Delaware, NYC), and exquisite details, makes me hope that somehow they all will.
—Richard Peabody, ed. Gargoyle Magazine

This is short fiction at its moody, character-driven best. The people you meet are so vivid and so sympathetic that their joys and sorrows will quickly become your own. I haven’t decided which is my favorite story, but I know my favorite line: “Good luck with your broken things.” Fantastic.
—Matthew Norman, author of Domestic Violets
  • FromHere_frontcover_300dpi.jpg
    FromHere_frontcover_300dpi.jpg
    "Jen Michalski writes down the beast, and you remember. Strong sentiment, strong stories." -- Terese Svoboda, 2013 Guggenheim Fellow and author of Tin God, Bohemian Girl, and others.
  • USA book awards.jpg
    USA book awards.jpg
    Michalski's second collection of fiction, From Here, was a 2015 USA Book Awards Finalist for short fiction. The City Paper said of From Here, "while the perspectives vary, they’re all told through the lens of Michalski’s sharp eye for detail and beautiful prose."
  • From Here review Baltimore City Paper.jpg
    From Here review Baltimore City Paper.jpg
    "But Michalski accomplishes what the best fiction does, which is to introduce us to other characters’ minds so that we may not feel so alone in or preoccupied with our own." Anna Walsh, Baltimore City Paper http://www.citypaper.com/arts/books/bcp-jen-michalskis-new-short-story-collection-from-here-inspects-the-ideas-of-longing-belonging-and-home-20150113-story.html
  • Rumpus Review From Here.png
    Rumpus Review From Here.png
    "Though her characters share common experiences—dashed hopes, disappointments, misunderstanding by loved ones—the voice in each story of From Here is fresh and specific." -- The Rumpus
  • wypr.png
    wypr.png
    Jen Michalski, speaking with Lisa Morgan on WYPR about her second collection of fiction, From Here. http://wypr.org/post/not-quite-kosher-o-s-fan-sea-marks-here-peabody-faculty-performance-and-drgn-king
  • Atticus Review Interview From Here.png
    Atticus Review Interview From Here.png
    "I approach every work thinking it will be short, that it will have a natural, quick resolution, but I am prepared that it will end when it needs to end. There’s no pressure and no expectations. I have no map; I just follow the trail and hope I don’t get eaten by a mountain lion." http://atticusreview.org/distilling-the-essence-of-things-an-interview-with-jen-michalski/
  • Neighbors - PANK.png
    Neighbors - PANK.png
    "She sees the little girls in the yard through her front window. They’re as naked as the day they were born, not far from the event itself. They dip backward and forward like pitchers, laughing, balling up their little white fists and shaking them like they’re playing craps. She moves away from the window quickly, as if their margarine skin could stretch from the yard and in through the keyhole to strangle her. A person could get in trouble for something like this, she thinks, and since she just moved here, she doesn’t need any." From "Neighbors," originally published in PANK, http://pankmagazine.com/piece/jen-michalski/

Could You Be With Her Now (novellas, Dzanc Books, 2013)

From Dzanc Books (published January 2013)

This collection of two novellas showcases Jen Michalski’s skills as a writer. In “I Can Make It to California Before It’s Time for Dinner,” Michalski examines the dangers of living in a world while having a compromised reality. In a first-person narrative, the reader follows Jimmy, a mentally challenged fourteen-year-old boy who accidentally kills a neighborhood girl. He winds up running away and hitching a ride with a trucker who is not as trustworthy a companion as Jimmy believes him to be.

In “May-September,” which won first place in Press 53’s Open Awards in 2010, a young writer is hired by a much-older woman over the summer to help blog her memoirs for her grandchildren. An unlikely friendship, and more, follows, as Michalski examines one of the last cultural taboos of our age: May-December romances.

"In tandem, [the novellas] inform one another, their threads entangling, ultimately affording a more complete reading of the collection as a whole." – Nik Korpin, Electric Literature

"The two very different styles in Could You Be With Her Now, not only make the case for the novellas as form, but also for Michalski as a wise writer and master stylist." – Baynard Woods, Baltimore City Paper

"Jen is an astonishingly sensitive writer." – Adam Robinson, HTML Giant

"Stewart O'Nan has written understandingly and movingly about the life of an older woman in Emily, Alone: A Novel. 'May-September' adds to the admittedly limited oeuvre with the inspiring story of a woman who can still come alive through love." – Celeste Sollod, Style Magazine

"At the center of it all is Michalski’s masterful hand, at once compassionate and unflinching, possessed of extraordinary, aesthetic restraint. What she has given us are two lean bodies of incredible depth and ambition."– Sara Lippmann, [Pank]

"This is an admirable and original book. Michalski is a skilled storywriter." – Roman Gladstone, Chamber Four

"Michalski is just a damned good writer, and her subject matter is, at the same time, the most common story there is: love. She handles it beautifully, revealing herself as one of the finest writers working today." – Cort Bledsoe, Ampersand Review

"Could You Be With Her Now, a book of two novellsa, is one of the most writerly books I've come across in awhile. What I mean is, Michalski gave a lot of thought to how she wanted to write these stories and then executed them so beautifully that the result is a piece of art to be admired as it is absorbed." – Lindsey Silken, Hello Giggles

"In both stories, Michalski explores what it means to be vulnerable in modern society, what it means to be invisible, powerless, voiceless—either from mental or physical fraility—but struggling to matter in the world just the same. How carelessness and resentments on part of the family members can inadvertently thrust their vulnerable loved ones into situations that bring unexpected, unwanted, painful consequences." – Rosalia Scalia, The Little Patuxent Review

'While “Dinner” feels like a celebration of its form’s nervous charms, “May-September” expands on its “state of grace” strengths, lending Now a certain comprehensive sweep; taken as a whole, the book feels like a tour de force statement on how — and why — novellas continue to be written." – Joseph Martin, Baltimore Fishbowl

"Together, these works illustrate how so often, we fail to go any deeper than the surface of those around us. Both in Jimmy and Sandra's interactions with the world around them, there is a breakdown of communication, and a failing of those who are close." – Jennifer Ray Morell, Sundog Lit

"Kudos to Michalski for giving me ALL THE EMOTIONS. Whether you fall into these two stories willingly, or struggle to catalog and exercise all of the demons you are dealing with as you make your way through, one thing is certain. Michalski will make you feel. And feeling... well, feeling anything feels good." – Lori Hettler, The Next Best Book Thing


  • cybwhn.jpg
    cybwhn.jpg
    "The two very different styles in Could You Be With Her Now, not only make the case for the novellas as form, but also for Michalski as a wise writer and master stylist." – Baynard Woods, Baltimore City Paper
  • Could You Be With Her Now, complete book.pdf
    Complete book, Could You Be With Her Now (Dzanc Books, 2013)
  • Press 53 2010 Open Awards Winner.jpg
    Press 53 2010 Open Awards Winner.jpg
    "May-September," one of the novellas in Could You Be With Her Now, won First Place for Novella in the 2010 Press 53 Open Award
  • Baltimore Mag Profile.jpg
    Baltimore Mag Profile.jpg
    "The Girl's on Fire," Baltimore Magazine. [Jen Michalski burns up the local lit scene with three new books.]
  • Rain Taxi Interivew - Could You Be With Her Now.png
    Rain Taxi Interivew - Could You Be With Her Now.png
    Rain Taxi, interview, Could You Be With Her Now - "The novella for me really is Sandra; I wanted to tell her story honestly, with anger and fear and longing. She says to Alice early in the novella that no one writes about old people, that “no one cares about us.” But she is all of us. The structure came about for me to be an impartial observer, to be entirely in these women’s heads, with the flashbacks mingled with present-tense conversations, even mingled with each other’s thoughts. I wanted the reader to become part of their narrative."
  • Electric Literature review Michalski.png
    Electric Literature review Michalski.png
    "Jen Michalski’s new collection, Could You Be With Her Now, pairs two novellas with very different subjects and thematic preoccupations. Yet in tandem, they inform one another, their threads entangling, ultimately affording a more complete reading of the collection as a whole."
  • Could You Be With Her Now HTML Giant.png
    Could You Be With Her Now HTML Giant.png
    "Together, they comprise a powerful one-two punch on the ecology of longing and desire." - HTML Giant http://htmlgiant.com/reviews/could-you-be-with-her-now/
  • Review Press 53 Open Awards.png
    Review Press 53 Open Awards.png
    “May-September” really leapt off the page for me. In a poetic and lyrical style reminiscent of Virginia Woolf or Alice Munro (two writers, interestingly, referred to as favorites by one of the characters), Michalski expertly tells the heartbreaking story of two women—one a young writer at the beginning of her career and the other an older woman reflecting on her life by writing her memoirs—and their awkward, budding friendship that turns to love. It is a story of unspoken desire, regret, loss and hope." http://www.arttaylorwriter.com/2010/11/07/review-2010-press-53-open-awards-anthology/

City Sages Baltimore (anthology, CityLit Press 2010)

Winner, Best Anthology, Best of Baltimore 2010

"There is a saying in Baltimore," said the sage himself, H.L. Mencken, "that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good." The same can be said of the different short pieces of prose collected in City Sages: Baltimore. Here are thirty-six ways to create literary art in Baltimore, and all of them are good. Edited by Jen Michalski, this first-ever anthology of some of Baltimore's best writers includes both famous and not-yet-famous scribes, both dead and alive. Michalski's objective was to represent an array of writers over a period of time who were born in Baltimore or lived in the city. The anthology includes pieces by seminal writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neal Hurston, Frederick Douglass, and F. Scott Fitzgerald; contemporary writers such as Laura Lippman, Anne Tyler, Madison Smartt Bell, Michael Kimball, Alice McDermott, Jessica Anya Blau, and Rafael Alvarez; and emerging writers such as Rosalia Scalia, Caryn Coyle, Joe Young, and Adam Robinson.
  • City Sages Cover.jpg
    City Sages Cover.jpg
    City Sages, Baltimore (CityLit Press, 2010), "Best Anthology," Baltimore Magazine, 2010
  • City Sage Baltimore Magazine.jpg
    City Sage Baltimore Magazine.jpg
    "Surprisingly, this is the first anthology of its kind for Baltimore." -- Baltimore Magazine
  • City Sages Best of .jpg
    City Sages Best of .jpg
    Best Anthology, City Sages, Baltimore Magazine, 2010
  • City Sages with authors.jpg
    City Sages with authors.jpg
    Reading at Cyclops Books, 2010, with contributors (L to R) Betsy Boyd, Caryn Coyle, Jen Michalski, Rosalia Scalia, and Maud Casey.

Host, Fiction Reading Series

Jen Michalski co-hosted the 510 Readings (voted "Best Scene" by the Baltimore City Paper), a monthly fiction reading series, with Michael Kimball from 2007 to 2014 and The Lit Show with Betsy Boyd, a literary biannual variety show, in 2012. Since 2014, she has hosted Starts Here!, a monthly fiction and nonfiction reading series sponsored by the Ivy Bookshop, at Bird in Hand. She's hosted readers from United States, Toronto, and London, including Tania James, Pamela Erens, Carolyn Parkhurst, Laura van den Berg, Elissa Schapell, Ron Kesey, Jason Diamond, and Josh Weil. In 2017, Baltimore Magazine awarded Starts Here! Reading series a "Best of Baltimore" for best reading series.
  • Jen as Host
    Jen as Host
    Jen as fiction reading host.
  • Starts Here! Homepage.png
    Starts Here! Homepage.png
    Jen Michalski has hosted Starts Here! (sponsored by the Ivy Bookshop) since 2014, hosting writers such as Stephen Dixon, Pamela Erens, Maud Casey, Laura van den Berg, and Gina Frangello. The series currently is held at Bird in Hand in Charles Village
  • Best of Baltimore 2017 - Starts Here! Reading Series
    Best of Baltimore 2017 - Starts Here! Reading Series
    Best of Baltimore 2017 - Starts Here!
  • 510 Readings Baltimore Magazine.jpg
    510 Readings Baltimore Magazine.jpg
    The 510 Readings was profiled in 2009 by Baltimore Magazine.
  • Bmore Art Interview, Starts Here!.png
    Bmore Art Interview, Starts Here!.png
    "Michalski has long been part of helping create community, and the new Starts Here! hopes to bring diverse writers into the same room." (http://bmoreart.com/2016/12/authors-among-us-jen-michalski-starts-here.html)
  • 510 Readings homepage.png
    510 Readings homepage.png
    Homepage of the 510 Reading Series, voted "Best Scene" by the Baltimore City Paper.
  • The Lit Show with Betsy Boyd.jpg
    The Lit Show with Betsy Boyd.jpg
    The Lit Show, Creative Alliance, 2012, with co-host Betsy Boyd.
  • Starts Here1.jpg
    Starts Here1.jpg
    Jen Michalski hosting Starts Here!

Dream City: Collaboration with Minas Konsolas

In the fall of 2013, I collaborated with painter Minas Konsolas, writing text for a series of 22 paintings he entitled "Dream City." Below are both Minas' artist statement and mine. The collaboration can be viewed at:

http://www.minasgalleryandboutique.com/dream_city.html

"The mountain village where I was born, as well as the mountain village works of Picasso, Braque, Cezanne, and Derain, helped me shape this series.

Due to connectivity and the loss of privacy in the electronic age, the city setting no longer offers anonymity.

The mountain village comes full circle in my paintings, where each one of them becomes a unique entity of intimacy and community. The Dream City Village, if you will."--Minas Konsolas


"Minas speaks of being influenced by painters Picasso, Braque, Cezanne, and Derain. When I view his work, I am reminded of the Romantic poets Keats, Whitman, Wordsworth, and Shelley, who I have referenced liberally. We are interconnected and trapped by ourselves, closer than ever and simultaneously farther apart. Nature seeps into Minas’ work like an insanity, breaking through cracks and weaving through windows, breaking down all that we have built, like it always does, beckoning us back to its paradise of the mind and soul."--Jen Michalski
  • dream-city-v1.jpg
    dream-city-v1.jpg