Jennifer Florence Steil is an American author, journalist, and editor who has lived in various countries around the world. She was born in Boston on November 18, 1968, and grew up in Groton, Massachusetts. Steil's writing career began after spending four years working as an actor, during which she became frustrated with the limited range of roles available to women. She then completed an MFA in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College and an MS in Journalism at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Steil's life experiences have significantly influenced her writing. In 2006, she moved to Yemen to take a job as editor of a newspaper in Sana’a, where she lived for four years. Her first book, The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, is a memoir about her tenure as editor of the Yemen Observer newspaper in Sana’a, which received praise from several publications, including The New York Times, Newsweek, and the Sydney Morning Herald. The book has been published in several countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, and Poland.
In addition to her memoir, Steil is also an accomplished novelist. Her novel, The Ambassador’s Wife, was inspired by her own kidnapping experience in Yemen and won the 2013 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Best Novel award, the 2016 Phillip McMath Post Publication book award, and was a finalist for the Bisexual Book Award and the Lascaux Novel Award. The Mark Gordon Company optioned the film rights to The Ambassador’s Wife, with plans to create a television miniseries starring Anne Hathaway. Her latest novel, Exile Music, explores an overlooked slice of World War II history, following Jewish musicians who flee Vienna in 1939 to seek refuge in the Bolivian Andes. The novel has won several awards, including Grand Prize in the Eyelands 2020 Book Awards and the Multicultural and Historical novel International Book Awards.
Steil's writing has received considerable critical acclaim, with her work appearing in several publications, including the New Orleans Review, Saranac Review, World Policy Journal, The Week, Time, Life, Peauxdunque Review, The Washington Times, Vogue UK, Die Welt, New York Post, The Rumpus, and France 24. She is currently working on a new novel as part of her dissertation for a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham in the UK. Steil continues to draw inspiration from her travels and experiences, crafting compelling narratives that engage and captivate readers.