Join Rabbi Michael Siegel and American Jewish Poet and AES member Jamie Wendt as they discuss and celebrate Jamie’s new book, Laughing in Yiddish, at the end of Shabbat morning services in the Main Sanctuary.
Jamie Wendt is the author of the poetry collection Laughing in Yiddish (Broadstone Books, 2025), which was a finalist for the 2022 Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and a semifinalist for the 2023 Word Works Washington Prize, 2022 Longleaf Press Book Contest, and the 2022 Brick Road Poetry Press Book Contest. Her first book, Fruit of the Earth (Main Street Rag, 2018), won the 2019 National Federation of Press Women Book Award in Poetry.
Her poems and essays have been published and are forthcoming in various literary journals and anthologies, including Feminine Rising, Atlanta Review,Catamaran, Green Mountains Review, Lilith, Jet Fuel Review, Flint Hills Review, Consequence Magazine, the Forward, Minyan Magazine, and others. She contributes book reviews to the Jewish Book Council as well as other publications, including Literary Mama and Mom Egg Review. Wendt won third prize in the Reuben Rose Poetry Competition through Voices Israel and won second prize for the 2024 Holloway Free Verse Award through the Illinois State Poetry Society. She was selected as an International Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review 2022 International Poetry Competition. She received a Pushcart Prize Honorable Mention and was nominated for Best Spiritual Literature.
Wendt graduated from the University of Nebraska Omaha with an MFA in Creative Writing, and she received a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Science in Secondary Education from Drake University. She is a middle school Humanities teacher and lives in Chicago with her husband and two kids.
Follow her on Instagram: @jamiewendtpoet.
