Jami Attenberg is the New York Times bestselling author of ten books, including The Middlesteins, All Grown Up, the recently published A Reason to See You Again, and a memoir, I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home. She has been a finalist for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction and the St. Francis College Literary Prize and longlisted twice for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. Kirkus has dubbed her, “the poet laureate of difficult families.”
She is also the creator of the annual online group writing accountability project #1000wordsofsummer, which inspired the USA Today bestseller 1000 Words:A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round. The Guardian declared her Craft Talk newsletter one of the “Top 15 Literary Substacks” and she has received coverage for 1000 Words from, amongst others, NPR, New York, Elle and The Today Show, which called the book the “Best Motivational Read for the New Year.” Additionally, 1000 Words is consistently cited in interviews and acknowledgments as a treasured resource for writers at all stages of their career—perhaps the greatest praise of all.
Jami is a widely sought after speaker and has presented workshops and talks across America and around the world. She has also written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, The Guardian, and others. Her work has been published in sixteen languages.
A new novel, The Amnesiac, is forthcoming in 2027. She lives in New Orleans, LA.