I am Jenny Drai. (Pronounced Dray in EN, Dree in DE, Dréé in NL.)
I'm the author of three full-length collections of poetry, two poetry chapbooks, and a small press novella.
I’ve been awarded the Gail B. Crump Prize in Experimental Fiction from Pleiades Magazine and the Deerbird Novella Prize from Artistically Declined Press. Additional prose has been published in or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Banango Street, OmniVerse, Another Chicago Magazine and Tupelo Quarterly.
I've lived all over the place in both the US and Germany and have worked all sorts of odd jobs. I studied literature and foreign languages as an undergraduate and have an MFA in creative writing. At the end of 2021, I returned to the Chicago area after seven years in Germany and, preceeding that, fifteen years on the West Coast.
I'm an amateur shutterbug, a cooking, television, knitting, travel, and swimming enthusiast (though not at the same time), a history buff (especially early medieval history), a friend to all cats, a wearer of weird socks, and, above all else, a reader. In fact, I am inspired to write, most of all, by what I read.
All photos on this website were taken by me, unless otherwise noted, for better or for worse.