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| Amanda Reynolds | |
|---|---|
| Name | Amanda Reynolds |
| Birth date | 1984 |
| Birth place | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Occupation | Writer; Activist; Curator |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Notable works | The Glass Archive; City of Echoes; "Market Streets" |
| Awards | Whiting Award; Lambda Literary Award |
Amanda Reynolds is an American writer, curator, and cultural activist known for work bridging contemporary literature, urban studies, and LGBTQ+ advocacy. Her projects encompass fiction, editorial curation, and community-based programming that have engaged institutions, festivals, and publishing houses across the United States and Europe. Reynolds's practice connects literary production with place-based research and nonprofit cultural organizing.
Reynolds was born in Chicago and raised in a neighborhood shaped by migration and industrial change, studying at local public schools and participating in youth arts programs affiliated with the Chicago Cultural Center, the Field Museum, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Barnard College and completed graduate study in Creative Writing and Urban Studies at New York University and the University of Chicago, where mentors included faculty associated with the Poetry Foundation and the Chicago Humanities Festival. During her formative years she interned at the editorial offices of HarperCollins, volunteered for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, and contributed to community archives coordinated by the Chicago History Museum.
Reynolds began her career as an editorial assistant at Tin House before moving into roles that combined publishing and curation, including programming at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and editorial projects for the Penguin Random House imprint. She co-founded a nonprofit literary space that collaborated with the New Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago to present readings, performances, and archival exhibitions. Her curatorial practice has led partnerships with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Knight Foundation, and residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Sundance Institute.
In publishing, Reynolds has edited anthologies and special issues for magazines such as Granta, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker, commissioning work by writers associated with the Stonewall Inn legacy and queer diasporic networks. She has taught workshops and seminars at institutions including Columbia University, University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Pratt Institute, and served on juries for the Pulitzer Prize committee and the PEN America awards. Her organizing work extends to urban policy forums convened by the Brookings Institution and cultural strategies discussed at the Aspen Institute.
Reynolds's debut novel, The Glass Archive, received critical attention from reviewers at The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post for its interleaving of archival fragments with city life. Her follow-up collection, City of Echoes, was awarded a Whiting Award and shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award; excerpts were published in Granta and Ploughshares. She edited the anthology Market Streets, which traced commerce and queer public space through contributions by authors connected to the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, GLAAD, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Review, and n+1, often addressing urban displacement, cultural memory, and literary form. Reynolds's curatorial exhibitions—presented at venues like the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern in Stockholm and the Showroom Gallery in London—integrated archival objects from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the GLBT Historical Society. She has been a featured speaker at the Hay Festival, the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and the New Yorker Festival.
Reynolds lives between Brooklyn and Chicago and participates in local arts coalitions such as the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Chicago Artists Coalition. She has been involved with advocacy organizations including Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project, and has mentored emerging writers through programs run by 826 Valencia and the Low Residency MFA platforms at various universities. Reynolds's partnerships and collaborations include long-term creative exchanges with editors and curators connected to Artforum and Frieze.
Reynolds is regarded in literary and cultural circles for blending social inquiry with formal experimentation; critics in outlets such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The Guardian have praised her interdisciplinary approach. Her public projects have attracted funding and attention from cultural philanthropies like the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, while some commentators in The New Republic and Jacobin have critiqued the institutional alliances her work sometimes entails. Reynolds's readership spans mainstream and academic audiences, with panels and interviews hosted by PBS, NPR, and BBC Radio 4 contributing to her profile.
Category:1984 births Category:Living people Category:American writers Category:American curators Category:LGBT rights activists