Short Bio
Nina is a native of Oslo, Norway who lives in Maine and Tel Aviv.
She holds a PhD in French literature and an MFA in Creative Writing from University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program. She has blogged as The Viking Jewess since 2014, and her writing has appeared in Tablet Magazine, Brevity Blog, Lilith Magazine, The Washington Post and AARP, among other places. Her work has been anthologized and her book, Sephardic Women's Voices: Out of North Africa was published in 2017. Her memoir, Body: My Life in Parts is forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press in 2025, and she is working on another memoir about becoming a Viking Jewess, as well as a historical novel inspired from true events, set in Norway before, during, and after The Second World War.
Longer Bio
Ever since I was young, writing has been my response to experience and how I organize my thoughts. It was Flannery O'Connor who said, “I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say,” and there you have it. This penchant, combined with an inexhaustible curiosity about the human experience, drew me to literature and stories.
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I am born and raised in Oslo, Norway, have lived in the U.S. since I was 19, with a stop in France, and now I also count Israel as my home for part of the year. I've travelled far, in many senses of the word, and I know a thing or two about loss and discovery; being on the outside and coming in, but most of all about being in-between. Although I still count and swear in Norwegian, English is now my daily language, with French as a runner up. Some say I can hold my own in Spanish and Hebrew as well.
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I have degrees in Jewish Studies and French, hold a PH.D in French literature from The University of Connecticut (2007), and most recently earned an MFA in Creative Non-Fiction from University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast program (2020).
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My writing is a reflection of me: In it you will find traces of my background, my interests, my esthetics.