Jill! is a virtual Women+ in Translation reading series that spotlights women, trans, and/or nonbinary translators or translators of women, trans, and/or nonbinary authors.
Jill! invites submissions on a rolling basis from translators at any stage of their careers, as well as proposals for guest-curated series. Read work can either be published or unpublished. Learn more.
jillreadingnyc@gmail.com
A little background…
August 2023 marked the ninth year of celebrating Women in Translation (WiT) Month.
This initiative was started by blogger Meytal Radzinski in 2014 (here's an FAQ page with a lot of relevant and interesting information about it.)
There's been much written about WiT, but what it boils down to is far fewer women than men are translated into English. Books by women in translation also get far less review coverage, awards nominations, and bookstore promotion, and as a result, have a harder time making it into readers’ hands. Even as the popularity of translated literature and translated authors has grown a great deal in recent years, male authors continue to be translated at a disproportionately greater rate than women, meaning that Women in Translation Month is still an important – and exciting! – part of the literary calendar.
Celebrating women in translation has been - and remains - an exciting and worthy initiative, but it’s also important to create an inclusive space for underrepresented and undercelebrated authors and translators across the gender spectrum.
And so, the idea is simple: A virtual Women+ in Translation reading series that spotlights women, trans, and nonbinary translators OR translators of women, trans, and nonbinary authors.
The series is named Jill! As in, no Jack required, and also as nod to Suzanne Jill Levine, the literary scholar, poet, and the translator we have to thank for numerous works by luminaries such as Cristina Rivera Garza, Julio Cortázar, Guadalupe Nettel, and Manuel Puig, among many, many others.
Read work can either be published or unpublished, as part of what this series is reacting to is the comparative dearth of published works by women in translation. Translations can be from any language, but must be into English.
We welcome readers at all stages of their translation career—just starting out to well-established. We’re also looking to spotlight a multiplicity of voices, lived experiences, languages, and literary landscapes. Know someone who you think should take part? Let us know!
About the Organizers
Larissa Kyzer (founder; co-organizer) Larissa Kyzer is a writer and Icelandic to English literary translator. In 2019, she was awarded the American Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen prize for her translation of Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s A Fist or a Heart. The same year, she was one of Princeton University’s Translators in Residence. In 2021, she guest edited “On the Periphery,” a spotlight on new Icelandic writing for Words Without Borders. Her translation of Sigríður Hagalín Björnsdóttir’s The Fires was released in 2023 and was followed by Fríða Ísberg’s The Mark in 2024. Larissa has received grant funding from the Fulbright Commission, the Icelandic Ministry of Education and Culture, the Icelandic Literature Center, and Finland’s Kone Foundation. She is a former co-chair of PEN America’s Translation Committee, as well as an At-Large board member for ALTA and a member of the Translators’ Organizing Committee (under the aegis of the National Writers’ Union). She divides her time between Brooklyn, New York and Reykjavík, Iceland.
Lisbeth Redfield (co-organizer) is an editor based in Oregon. She has worked in nonprofit publishing for a decade, holding positions at Pen + Brush and Oxford University Press. She helps run the WWC, a peer-organized writing critique group, and holds strong opinions about books that have gone out of print.