Jena Schwartz is an extraordinary writer, a barely-discovered national treasure.
— Michael Simms
Photo by Isabella Dell'olio

Photo by Isabella Dell'olio


Publications

 

Books

Why I Was Late for Our Meeting: Poems
The Inside of Out: Poetry, Prose, and Politics
Don’t Miss This: A Memoir Through Poems

Personal Essays

Soon Be Home, Emerge Literary Journal (forthcoming)
Writing Since October 7, Substack
I Don’t Want to Win, Jewish Journal
Love the Child You Have, Cognoscenti
Salvo, Vox Populi
Petrozavodsk, 1990, Emulate
On Becoming Your Own Witness, Sunlight Magazine: Artists on Craft Series
The Space Between Lives, Sliver of Stone
The Spaces Between the Consonants, On Being
Beyond the Lonely Bench, Full Grown People
Free Associating About Fear & Faith (Or, What I’ve Forgotten), The Manifest Station, essay winner of Jen Pastiloff & Emily Rapp’s Vermont Retreat
The Intrigue of Just Passing Through, Barnard College Magazine

Poetry

Perhaps, Siddur Lev Shalom for Weekdays (forthcoming 2024)
It Took a War, Jewish Writing Project
The Undefended Heart, Tikkun
Ancestral Memory, The Jewish Writing Project
Refuge, New York Times
Preparing for Sabbath, Vox Populi
The Well, Kol Aleph
Day After Yom Kippur, Tikkun
God Is Not Perfect, Vox Populi
Jacob, Tikkun
Return, Mabel Magazine

Prompts

One Little Acorn, Vox Populi
The Book of Secrets, Vox Populi
Harold and the Purple Prompt, Proximity: A Quarterly Collection of True Stories

Op-Eds

Things I Haven’t Said, Amherst Bulletin
The Public Is Not the Problem, Daily Hampshire Gazette
Protecting the Wrong People in Amherst, Amherst Bulletin
Advocacy for trans youth, Amherst Indy
The Real Inconvenience Is Racism, Amherst Bulletin
The Chasm: Towards Greater Collective Care, Not More Billionaires, Tikkun

Anthologies

Four Psalms (“To Be a Jew;””Nova;” “I Don’t Want to Win;” “The Way Through”), Calling Out: Psalms for Today, ed. Sarah Tuttle-Singer and Rabbi Menachem Creditor
Two poems (“Inheritance” and “The Tip of My Tongue,” On Being 40(ish), ed. Lindsey Mead

Interviews

If we are going to move towards peace, we have to practice containing multitudes,” The Graphic
Real Fit with Pam Moore
The Writer Within, More Happiness, Less Suffering
How Starting a Writing Practice Can Sharpen Your Mind, Considerable Magazine
Stepping Into Truth: Conversations on Race, Gender, and Social Justice with Omkari Williams