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About Sandra Jensen

I have over 40 short story and flash fiction publications, including in: World Literature Today, The Irish Times, Descant, AGNI, The Fiddlehead and others. I was born in South Africa and have British and Canadian citizenship. My work has received a number of awards including winning the Grindstone 2020 International Novel Prize, Bridport Prize's 2019 Peggy Chapman-Andrews Award for a First Novel, the 2012 bosque Fiction Competition and the 2011 J.G. Farrell award for best novel-in-progress. I have been awarded Professional Writer’s Grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Arts Council of Ireland and Arts Council England. I have recently finished a comic coming-of-age novel based on my time as a teenager in Co. Donegal, Ireland. I was a guest writer and panellist at the 12th, 13th and 15th International Conference on the Short Story (Little Rock, Arkansas, Austria and Lisbon); an invited participant and workshop leader at The Galle Literary Festival, Sri Lanka in 2011 and 2018 and a seven-time participant of the Sirenland Writer’s Conference in Positano, Italy. I attended the 2019 Autobiography and Fiction with Electric Literature residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and the Banff Centre’s Wired Writing Studio in 2011/2012. In my spare time I run Animal Welfare Advocates for Bosnia, a small group raising awareness and funds to stop animal suffering. I live with my partner, David Crean and my foundling cat, Rónán. My writing mentors are Barbara Turner-Vesselago, who teaches Freefall writing - without her support and guidance I would not be writing; also: Deena Metzger, Dani Shapiro, Marina Endicott and Jim Shepard. More information: http://www.sandrajensen.net Specialties: Fiction, creative non-fiction, flash

Descant Publication

 

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Descant Magazine has just published its issue 167 “Masala” on the South Asian diaspora. My piece “Even in Ruin” is in it, an edited, reworked section of my novel-in-progress, a literary adventure based in Sri Lanka during the civil war. I’m very excited about this publication, and I’ve just started reading the other stories in the magazine, some truly wonderful pieces in here. As guest editor Pradeep Solanki says, “Masala is a heady concoction of spices..” so too this wonderful edition of Descant.


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Dani Shapiro on Oprah

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Dani Shapiro, a remarkable writer and mentor of writers will be featured this fall in conversation with Oprah. Dani’s memoir, “Devotion” was one of “O” The Oprah Magazine’s must-read picks for February.

I have been blessed to be in two of Dani’s workshop’s at Sirenland (see my blogs on this). She’s an extraordinary woman and I’m very much looking forward to seeing her in discussion with another extraordinary woman, Oprah Winfrey.

Saving Marley

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I’ve been privileged to have been involved in the rescue of a number of stray, abused and neglected dogs (and a smaller number of cats) in Bosnia Herzegovina, recently helping bring over 15 rescues to the UK and Europe to their ‘forever homes’. I have not met a single one of these dogs/cats until today, when I met sweetheart Marley. He’s gentle and still shy, but what a difference to how he was just a few months ago….

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Summer Literary Seminars

This morning I received a lovely note from Mikhail Iossel, director of the Summer Literary Seminars telling me that my novel excerpt entry had “Strong, interesting, inventive writing. Really quite accomplished.”

I was a shortlisted contest finalist and have been offered a “merit-based fellowships” to Summer Literary Seminars in either Lithuania or Kenya:

“Our programs this year will take place in Lithuania (July 14 – July 27) and Kenya (December 8 – 21), and will feature a wide variety of internationally renowned faculty and guests, including innovative writers, poets, translators, literary scholars, publishers, and artists. Another unique feature of the SLS programs is our close cooperation with the local literary and artistic communities, and the sheer degree of our program participants’ immersion in the local culture. We enable our students to the see the place “from within,” as it were: through the eyes of the local writers and artists, whether in East-Central Europe or East Africa.For more information about our 2013 programs, please visit our website at www.sumlitsem.org.”

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Guest Blog at Mslexia 4, 5 + 6

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My last three post as guest blogger on Mslexia as a guest blogger, with a short excerpt:

Freefalling into Editing “For me, editing is a tortuous process. Sometimes inspiration pays a visit and I can suddenly see how to fix the logjam of awkward sentences and eye-ball rolling plot, but mostly it’s a two-step forward, one step back lurch into the unknown.

I far prefer writing the first draft. Probably because I “Freefall” first drafts….”

On Not Being a Sick Person “One of the things I’m supposed to be blogging about here is being a writer with a chronic illness. I sit here, in bed, as it happens, feeling quite blank about the subject. My illness has never featured in any of my fiction, which might seem a bit odd since it has been a central feature of my life for nearly 20 years.  Perhaps it’s like living in Ireland: I’m sure I’ll write about it when I’m no longer living here (the plan is to move to the UK in 2013).

Will l ever not have a chronic illness?”

Another Novel Challenge “Once again I wanted to avoid blogging about my progress on my novel. It’s going in such fits and starts and I’ve complained every inch (word?) of the way.

Then I read the quote from the recent Mslexia interview with Diana Athill:

“I have never understood how many writers moan and groan about how awful writing is. Absolute nonsense.”

I’ve Thoroughly enjoyed my time at Mslexia and feel I’ve only just got warmed up! For my first 3 posts, go here.

Guest Blog at Mslexia 1, 2 + 3

mslexia
I have been enjoying my stint at Mslexia as a guest blogger. I’m there until the end of January so please come and visit! Here are my first three blogs with a short excerpt:

Into Thin Air “The nice blurb that Mslexia gave me regarding my guest blog says: ‘she’s on the home straight with her debut novel, and will be blogging for us about how she’s getting on…’ The home straight. To me it feels like I’m battling the final ascent of Mount Everest. Each morning I poke my head out of the tent and see the white sheet of snow and return, heavy with despair, to huddle in my sleeping bag. Some days I manage to lug myself up a few more feet, but other days I tumble back down, ending up lower on the slope than when I started….”

I’m (not) just the writer…. “The last two weeks on The Novel have been like munching on rusted bolts. I didn’t feel this would be very inspiring to write about, let alone read. So let me tell you about another of my displacement activities: I’ve just come back from Norwich, where I gave a reading for the launch of the Unthology No. 3, the third short story anthology released by Unthank Books, an independent Norwich-based publisher.”

Munching Bolts “I’ve been catching up on my Saturday Guardians and have just read the late David Foster Wallace’s piece on the agony and ecstasy of writing. It’s taken the wind out of my sails as this is the subject I planned to write about today (well, the agony part), but of course David Foster Wallace has managed not only to cover the full gamut of emotions involved but has made me re-experience them in Technicolor. All except for the ‘fun’ he assures us is possible.”

Winter News: reviews and awards

A nice little write up in The Southern Star, a local Cork paper:

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Reviews of my short story, “So Long, Marianne” in the Unthology No 3:

Sabotage – October 16, 2012 Review by Charlotte Barnes
Bookmunch – October 11, 2012 Review by Fran Slater

And my flash story, “Minotaur” was short listed for Lightship Publishing’s The Lightship International Flash Fiction Prize and will be published in their anthology in November.

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