Join us on September 19 for a conversation on “Writing the World from Copenhagen to NYC”! This program presents the work of four talented early-career writers who have been selected by faculty at Forfatterskolen, Copenhagen, and the Columbia University School of the Arts, New York, to represent the best of new writing in Danish and English: Sophia Acuña, Christian Fobian, Patricio Hernández Palazuelos and Krista Winther.
In cooperation between these two arts institutions, the four Word for Word Exchange Writers have been engaged in a collaborative project of mutual translation. Moderated by Katrine Øgaard Jensen, they will present excerpts from the resulting work here in a multilingual reading and discussion about international 21st-century art-making with writers on the faculty of both institutions.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Katrine Øgaard Jensen is a poet and translator of Danish literature. She is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the National Translation Award in Poetry, the Kenyon Review’s Peter Taylor Fellowship, the Danish Arts Foundation’s Young Artistic Elite Fellowship, and Kjeld Elfelt’s Memorial Grant from the Danish Translators’ Association, and has been a finalist for the Best Translated Book Award and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Ancient Algorithms, her collaborative poetry debut of mistranslations with contributors Sawako Nakayasu, Aditi Machado, Baba Badji, CAConrad, Paul Cunningham, and Ursula Andkjær Olsen, is forthcoming from Sarabande Books in September 2025. Jensen’s translations include Third-Millennium Heart (Action Books, 2017), Outgoing Vessel (Action Books, 2021), and My Jewel Box (Action Books, 2022), all by Ursula Andkjær Olsen, as well as To The Most Beautiful by Mette Moestrup (co•im•press, 2024). She currently serves as Executive Director of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA).
This program is sponsored in part by Danish Arts Foundation.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS
Sophia Acuña is a Chicana writer from Arizona. After working in neuroscience at UC San Diego, she started writing literary journalism pieces based in California and Mexico. Now, at Columbia University’s MFA program, she uses scientific and historical research in her fiction to curate new perspectives.
Christian Fobian (they/them), born 2000. Graduated from the Danish Academy of Creative Writing this summer. Their poems explore gender and group dynamics through magical realism. They are also an editor at the publishing house Basilisk.
Patricio Hernández Palazuelos is a Mexican poet and translator based in New York City. His works explore the ideas of identity and urban life in an exophonic way. He translates from Spanish and Nahuatl (Mexico’s largest indigenous language) and also speaks French.
Krista Winther graduated from The Danish Academy of Creative Writing this summer. Her texts often reflect upon intimacy, loneliness and being part of a community.
PHOTO—Kim Wyon