Photo by Deborah Lowery
Jennifer O’Grady is an award-winning American playwright and poet. Born and raised in New York City, she earned an MFA in poetry from Columbia University and a BA from Vassar, where she won awards for her writing.
Jennifer’s plays are produced by theaters and schools across the U.S. and internationally. Her full-length plays include still small voice (2023 Moxie Incubator Finalist); Fertile Ground (2022 Semifinalist: O’Neill Conference, Prince Grace/New Dramatists Fellowship and Panndora’s Box); Charlotte’s Letters (Rising Artist Award; 1st Place Henley Rose Award; O’Neill Semifinalist and other honors); Paranormal Love (MTWorks Newborn Award; NEWvember Finalist; Panndora’s Box Honorable Mention, other honors) and more. Her short plays have won awards and are published multiple editions of the annual Best Ten-Minute Plays and Best New Ten-Minute Plays anthologies. Her work is also published in multiple editions of the annual Best Women’s Stage Monologues, as well as in Best Contemporary Monologues for Women 18-35, Stage It! 3, Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble’s The Covid Monologues, some scripts literary magazine and elsewhere. Jennifer’s plays have been presented by The Irish Rep, 6th Street Playhouse, Attic Salt Theatre, The Lanford Wilson New American Play Festival, Short+Sweet, Lakeshore Players Theatre, Rover Dramawerks, Little Fish Theatre, NEWvember Festival Dublin, Heartland Theatre Company, Weathervane Playhouse, Gi60 (US and UK), The Playhouse at White Lake, Brave New World Rep, PlayZoomers and many others.
As a poet, she is the author of White, winner of the Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry and a Greenwall Award from The Academy of American Poets; and Exclusions & Limitations (Plume Editions/MadHat Press). Her poems are published, reprinted and broadcast in numerous places, including Poetry, Harper’s, The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, The Writer’s Almanac, Poetry Daily, The Southern Review, Yale Review, Plume, The Georgia Review, BBC Radio 4and American Poetry: The Next Generation (to name just a few), and have garnered awards and Pushcart Prize nominations. Her poem “Moths” (included in White) has been widely shared and reprinted and is set to music by composer Robert Paterson. Jennifer’s other poetry honors include a Billee Murray Denny Award and the W.K. Rose Fellowship.
Jennifer has worked in publishing and nonprofit literary arts, first at The Academy of American Poets and later as Program Director of the National Writer’s Voice/YMC National Writer’s Voice. She and her family live just outside New York City.