Writing
I work on both, fiction and nonfiction projects. My first novel Wir alles, wir nichts was published in 2018. Denkräume. Von Orten und Ideen, an anthology on places and spaces of thinking, came out in 2020 (Rowohlt). In 2023, Natur und Nation. Landschaft als Ausdruck nationaler Identität, my research on the literary Hudson River and the Rhine, came out and is available here. Walk Her Way New York City, an illustrated walking guide to women's history in New York came out in 2025.
I was born and raised in Germany, and while I have written most of my fiction in German, I am increasingly working on projects in English as well. As a translator, I specialize in texts from English into German.
I’m now on Substack! Rooted in walking, Fieldnote Fridays arrives in your inbox once a week — a photo (often a Polaroid) and a short reflection from a walk; a glimpse of the world as I saw it that week. Small, poetic entries — part diary, part field guide. I hope you’ll join me. Subscribe for free and walk along.
Book Publications:
February 4, 2025
Walk Her Way
New York City
A Walking Guide to Women's History
Walk Her Way New York City is a collection of 10 curated walking tours through New York neighborhoods, each celebrating the city's history and the women that have made their mark here. Authors Jana Mader and Kaitlyn Allen have meticulously researched and traced the city blocks, uncovering important landmarks, events and women's stories, both well-known and forgotten, to create a series of fun and eye-opening walks that connect you to the city that surrounds you.
Publisher: Hardie Grant
"Walk Her Way is a beautifully illustrated walking guide to NYC. Fun maps of 2 to 3.5 mile walks that give a wealth of information on the influential women who lived and worked in NYC through the centuries. If you enjoy exploring cities and love history, this is the book for you!"
"A beautifully curated, beautifully written, and beautifully illustrated book to honor, highlight, and celebrate incredible women in history! And what a timely book to celebrate the power, courage, activism, and creativity of all of the humans featured! "
"This book has many lovely & colorful illustrations, the write-ups are very informative & interesting, and the overall selection is great!"
Share your review with us through amazon here!
Natur und Nation
Landschaft als Ausdruck nationaler Identität im 19. Jahrhundert – der Rhein und der Hudson River
April 2023
Königshausen & Neumann, Germany
published in German
Comparative Literature, German Studies
About the Book
Based on my doctoral thesis and completed under the auspices of a scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Natur und Nation. Landschaft als Ausdruck nationaler Identität explores representations of nature in light of national narratives in literary texts. I examine landscape as a medium for the formation of national identities in the process of 19th-century nation-building in Germany and the United States, engaging with authors like Friedrich Hölderlin, Heinrich Heine, Washington Irving, and John Burroughs. My analysis juxtaposes two river landscapes, the Rhein and the Hudson, which are historically linked through German immigration to the Hudson Valley and the founding of the village of Rhinebeck. Building on Fredric Jameson’s three concentric frameworks, I argue that the interpretation of a text has to be done in four phases: a political moment, a social one, plot and genre, and finally adopting a wider lens on collective histories and possible futures.
Denkräume
Von Orten und Ideen
July 2020
Rowohlt Verlag, Germany
published in German
anthology; ed. w. S. Jung
About the Book
"Das Denken ist so unberechenbar wie die Gegenwart, in der es stattfindet."
How much does thinking depend on where we think? In principle, it can take place anywhere and at any time. Music can stimulate thinking, a walk in nature or in the city, being alone or with others. The places and possibilities for thinking and writing are many. Spaces open up possibilities and limit them at the same time, they separate and connect; however, thinking – even that which is spatially limited – transcends boundaries.
For this book, we invited thirty journalists, writers, and scholars to reflect on the places where they think and write. What does the place do to the thoughts? The results are anecdotes, autobiographical observations, conversations, essays, literary rambles, and thought pictures. They tell us stories – some lighter, like thinking in the shower or on the dance floor, some more serious, like thinking in exile or in prison.
With contributions by Basma Abdelaziz, Meryl Altman, Dirk Baecker, Jens Balzer, Bernd Bösel, Friedrich von Borries, Mercedes Bunz, Ann Cotten, Dietmar Dath, Diedrich Diederichsen, Sascha Ehlert, Carolin Emcke, Hanna Engelmeier, Isabelle Graw, Rahab Haidar, Sven Hanuschek, Gerhard Henschel, Iman Humaidan, Ann Lauterbach, Birthe Mühlhoff, Matthias Nawrat, Joseph O'Neill, Kathrin Passig, Stephan Porombka, Kathrin Röggla, Juan G. Sánchez Martínez, Nora Sternfeld, Jörg Sundermeier, Meşale Tolu, David Wagner und Bernhard Waldenfels.
Wir alles, wir nichts
January 2018
Qantor Verlag, Austria
published in German
novel
About the Book
A collage of portraits in Europe and the US in the year 2016, an election year in the States. Some of the characters meet, some don't, but are still indirectly connected.
Essays & Articles
Arendt and Translation: Thought, Language, Poetry
"Quote of the Week" for the Hannah Arendt Center, Bard College; April 2023
Melora Kuhn: Tales from the Dark
Text for New York artist Melora Kuhn's new exhibition at Galerie EIGEN + ART in Leipzig, June 2021 (published in English and in German)
Nature as Art
Article about Christoph Heilmann and his collection on display at Lenbachhaus München. In: FORUM. Magazine for scholarship holders of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, p. 52-55 (published in German)
Hannah Arendt and World War I: On Statelessness and the Rise of Totalitarian Regimes
For "Amor Mundi" at Hannah Arendt Center, Bard College, November 2020
Arendt, Hölderlin, and their perception of Schicksal
In: Hannah Arendt Journal of Bard College, Volume VIII, 2020, p. 122-135
portrait photo: AnneRaft Photography