Jennifer Sears is the author of What Mennonite Girls Are Good For, winner of the 2025 John Simmons Iowa Short Fiction Award judged by the novelist Margot Livesey.
Her honors include fiction fellowships and support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the 2024 NeMLA Fiction Book Award, and the 2026 Scholar on Campus Award at New York City College of Technology. Her stories and essays have been cited in Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She writes a sometimes newsletter about reading, writing, and teaching writing: Si Omnia Ficta…if all is fiction.
Jennifer graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She is an associate professor of English and creative writing at New York City College of Technology/City University of New York where she co-coordinates the Minor in Creative Writing. She could talk forever about how much she loves Brooklyn.
