Meet Jeffrey Wolf

Jeffrey Wolf and Ridge Anderson

Jeffrey Wolf is the author of And Even This (Cornerstone Press, forthcoming 2028). His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Conjunctions, Prairie Schooner, The Common, Chicago Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. He has received a fellowship grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, a Special Mention from the Pushcart Prize, and residencies in Iceland, Finland, and the Quad Cities. He lives in Chicago, and you can find him on Instagram at @jeffreywolfwrites.

The theme for the upcoming edition of Chautauqua Journal is Intervals. How did the idea of Intervals contribute to your decision to submit your writing?

“And Even This” is a story built out of repetition; the idea of returning is essential not only to the plot but to the structure of the narrative. In every scene, the main characters, Gil and Fred, are making choices about whether to keep showing up, both for each other and for themselves, and what that means for them as they look back on their lives. And, of course, the negative space between each scene, the intervals of white space, also serves a narrative function. With the theme of intervals already so heavily embedded into the story, submitting to this themed issue was a no-brainer, and I’m honored that it was selected for inclusion.

As an author of both fiction and nonfiction, how do you think the two genres

speak to one another in your work and do you tend to favor one over the other?

A lot of my writing deals with memory and oral narrative, so I’ve always found the line between fiction and nonfiction a bit porous. When we label something nonfiction, we’re making a contract with the reader that what we’ve written is factual to the best of our knowledge, but that still often involves writing from memory, which is rarely a reliable arbiter of objective fact. Memory is the space where we craft some of our boldest fictions. I tend to favor fiction because it gives me more freedom to invent and change things in order to build a greater sense of resonance or to dip into character perspectives that I wouldn’t otherwise have access to. For example, “And Even This” is based on a real family story: my great-uncle chose to die of kidney failure, and my grandfather was unhappy about it. But everything beyond that core premise is made up, and in telling thestory this way I got to explore the characters and their relationship in a way that I hope is meaningful.

Do you have any projects that are taking priority with your time right now or that you are particularly excited about?

My debut story collection, And Even This, is coming out in February 2028 with

Cornerstone Press (yes, Chautauqua is publishing the title story!), so priority #1 is

getting that book to the finish line. I also recently started a novel, which is still coated in that fresh-project excitement; it’s going to be set in Chicago and is inspired in equal parts by family history and the works of German author W.G. Sebald.

What would you say to a writer who is struggling to find their voice in their

writing?

Whenever I struggle with this, I always come back to reading. Read the works that made you want to become a writer in the first place—works made of beautiful language and that connect you to the deep, resonant emotional experience of being human. And let that be the conduit for unearthing the emotional truths that you have to share. Aside from that, give yourself permission to play. Often, I feel like I daydream my way into stories; they assemble themselves over time because I consistently make space to explore and see what I find. So give yourself the time and space to find it, and also (this is important, too) give yourself permission to not find it. It’s not truly play unless you can take away the pressure to produce—and writing for the joy of writing will always produce something that is more fully you.

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