Ann Kjellberg

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Ann Kjellberg (born 1962) is an American editor. She worked for many years at The New York Review of Books and founded the literary magazine Little Star and the book-reviewing newsletter Book Post. She is the literary executor of the poet Joseph Brodsky.

Early life

Kjellberg was born in Boston and raised in Belmont, Massachusetts. Her father was the neurosurgeon Raymond N. Kjellberg, inventor of stereotactic proton beam therapy. She attended Yale University, where she studied with Harold Bloom, graduating with a degree in English in 1984.

Career

While in college Kjellberg worked for David R. Godine Publisher and Yale University Press. After graduating she worked in the pioneering Cambridge bookshop WordsWorth.

In 1985 she moved to New York, joining the editorial staff of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, where she edited Caryl Phillips’ first book The European Tribe and Kathryn Davis’ first novel, Labrador, which had been received as an unsolicited manuscript. She served as personal assistant to Susan Sontag and Joseph Brodsky.

In 1988 she joined the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books, in the office of Robert Silvers, remaining there until 2017, becoming senior, then contributing editor.

From 1993 to 1995 she served as the American editor for Artes, the magazine of the Swedish Academy.

On Brodsky’s death in 1996, she became his literary executor, editing several editions of his work. With Brodsky’s widow Maria Brodsky and other friends, she founded the Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fellowship Fund, which from 1996 to 2020 sent Russian writers on creative sojourns in Italy; she has served with Maria Brodsky as a director of the fund since its inception. Brodsky Fund Fellows include Maria Stepanova, Elena Fanailova, Aleksandr Skidan, Timur Kibirov, Elena Shvarts, and Shamshad Abdullaev.

In 2009, Kjellberg founded the annual print literary magazine Little Star, for which she edited seven issues. Little Star featured the work of Derek Walcott, Wisława Szymborska, Seamus Heaney, Les Murray, Ann Beattie, Sigrid Nunez, Charles Simic, Gary Snyder, Marilyn Hacker, Tomasz Różycki, Alice Fulton, Jean Valentine, James Kelman, Padgett Powell, Paul Muldoon, Jamaica Kincaid, Adam Zagajewski, Eliot Weinberger, C. K. Williams, Mark Strand, Caleb Crain, Lydia Davis, Carl Phillips, Joy Williams, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, W. G. Sebald, Durs Grünbein, and Tim Parks, among others. John Banville called it, "A very fine venture indeed, everything such a magazine should be." From 2013 to 2015, Little Star published a weekly app version, Little Star Weekly, with the app platform 29th Street Publishing.

In 2017 Kjellberg founded a newsletter-based book review, Book Post. Described as "a bite-sized newsletter-based book review delivery service," Book Post was created to address the decline in daily books coverage for a general audience like the closing of The Washington Post's "Book World" (which was reintroduced in 2022 after 13 years) and the closing of Bookforum. In the “Notebook” sections of Book Post, Kjellberg also addressed topics in publishing like independent bookselling, local journalism, robust revenue models for writing, and responsibility in digital platforms. Book Post was a beta project of the Substack newsletter platform.

Book Post has featured work by Jamaica Kincaid, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Lucy Ellmann, Ian Frazier, Joy Williams, Calvin Baker, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Padgett Powell, Edward Mendelson, Mona Simpson, John Guare, Charles Simic, Álvaro Enrigue, David Leavitt, Durs Grünbein, John Banville, Wendell Berry, Marina Warner, and Zoe Heller, among others.

Between 2006 and 2014 Kjellberg taught nonfiction writing for three semesters at Bryn Mawr College.

Kjellberg has been a Director’s Guest at Civitella Ranieri and a Likhachev Fellow.

From 2008 to 2013 Kjellberg was active in public school advocacy, and co-edited New York City Public Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers, and Policymakers Need to Know with Leonie Haimson.

Kjellberg is a member of the Religious Society of Friends and has served on the corporation of the American Friends Service Committee and the Trustees of New York Quarterly Meeting.

Publications and appearances

• Co-editor, New York City Public Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers, and Policymakers Need to Know (Lulu, 2011), including essays by Diane Ravitch, Deborah Meier, and others
• Editor, Collected Poems in English by Joseph Brodsky (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000)
• Editor, Nativity Poems by Joseph Brodsky (Farrar, Sraus & Giroux, 2001)
• Editor, Selected Poems: 1968-1996 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021), with an introduction by Ann Kjellberg
• Beyond Meaning: Joseph Brodsky’s Poetry of Exile
• The High Publishing Life
• “Notebooks,” Book Post, March 2018 to present

References

This article "Ann Kjellberg" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Ann Kjellberg. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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