Writing

Offill's first novel, Last Things, was published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and in the UK by Bloomsbury. It was a New York Times Notable book and a finalist for the L.A Times First Book Award. Offill's second novel, Dept. of Speculation, was published in January 2014^[7][8][9] and was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review.^[1] Dept. of Speculation has been shortlisted for the Folio Prize in the UK, the Pen/Faulkner Award and the L.A. Times Fiction Award. In 2016 Offill was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.^[10]

Her work has appeared in the Paris Review.^[11] She is also the co-editor with Elissa Schappell of two anthologies of essays and the author of several children's books. Offill's short fiction has appeared in Electric Literature and Significant Objects.^[6]

"I have always liked compressed and fragmentary forms. I trace it back to my mind being blown by John Berryman when I was nineteen."
—Jenny Offill, about Dept. of Speculation ^[12]

Her third novel, Weather, was shortlisted for the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction,^[13] and in December 2020, Emily Temple of Literary Hub reported that the novel had made 13 lists of the best books of 2020.^[14]

Teaching

Offill has taught in the MFA programs at Brooklyn College, Syracuse University,^[15] Columbia University and Queens University of Charlotte.^[16][17] She served as Visiting Writer at Syracuse University and Sarah Lawrence College, and as Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College and Pratt University. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.^[18]

Novels

• Last Things. Bloomsbury, 2000. ISBN 9780747551478
• Dept. of Speculation. Knopf Doubleday. 2014. ISBN 978-0-385-35102-7.
• Weather. Knopf. 2020. ISBN 978-0-385-35110-2.

Children's books

• 17 Things I'm Not Allowed to Do Anymore. Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Random House Children's Books. 2010. ISBN 978-0-307-55397-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)^[20]
• Eleven Experiments That Failed. Illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Schwartz & Wade Books. 2011. ISBN 978-0-375-84762-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)^[21][22]
• Sparky!. Random House Children's Books. 2014. ISBN 978-0-375-98859-2.
• While You Were Napping, Random House Children's Books, 2014. ISBN 9780375865725

As co-editor

• Jenny Offill; Elissa Schappell (2005). The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's True Life Tales of Friendships that Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-307-41937-8.
• Jenny Offill; Elissa Schappell (2008). Money Changes Everything: Twenty-two Writers Tackle the Last Taboo with Tales of Sudden Windfalls, Staggering Debts, and Other Surprising Turns of Fortune. Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-2283-8.