Jennifer Egan is the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist of A Visit from the Goon Squad and the author of six other books as well as many nonfiction articles including a year-long series about homelessness in New York. Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction while her latest, The Candy House, was named one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022 and one of President Obama’s favourite reads that year. 

Growing up in San Francisco, Jenny moved to New York after completing her MA at Cambridge in the UK. She began writing while working several jobs and attending a workshop hosted by the poet Philip Schulz, where participants read their work aloud and she developed the habit she practises to this day. 

In 1996, Jenny was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship and in 2012 won the Pulitzer Prize. She served as President of PEN America from 2018-2021. She met me at the Brooklyn studio for this conversation. 

Follow on Instagram @HowIWroteThisthePodcast

Promotional support from the Quebec Writers’ Federation