Interview #207: How Jenessa Abrams Makes Money Writing

Jenessa Abrams has built a career that defies easy categorization. She is a writer, literary critic, translator, and a practitioner of Narrative Medicine who balances her prestigious role as a Columbia University lecturer with the relentless hustle of a freelance food writer and private editor. While her bylines appear everywhere from The Atlantic to Eater, she has learned firsthand that academic and literary prestige rarely translate directly to financial security.

In this interview, Jenessa talks about piecing together a literary life. She breaks down the pay disparities between culinary journalism and literary criticism, acknowledges the role that familial privilege played in funding her Ivy League education, and recounts the scramble of losing her primary teaching income when an online platform shuttered without warning. If you want a clear-eyed perspective on juggling the unpredictable realities of academia, freelance journalism, and parenthood to sustain a creative life, this one’s for you.

• What you do: Lecturer, reading series director, freelance book reviewer, freelance food writer, freelance editor, mom (with no childcare).

• Years writing professionally: Around 10 years (before that, I was a professional student. I went straight from my BA to my MFA to my MS).

• Earnings range: It fluctuates wildly, anywhere from $15k to $45k.

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Undoubtedly, I make the most money from my position as a lecturer in the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University. I’m an adjunct, which means there are no benefits, and the amount I can teach/make is capped.

In addition to teaching at Columbia, I direct Narrative Medicine Rounds, which is a reading/performance lecture series hosted in conjunction with Columbia University Irving Medical Center. The pay is modest, but it is a job I deeply love, getting to curate the writers, and thinkers, and doctors whose work we’ll celebrate and share with the world.

Next is my freelance food writing where I’m paid per word to write features about culinary trends, to conduct interviews with chefs, and to create ranked listicles about everything from lobster rolls to marshmallows. Following that is my work as a freelance editor, where I take on clients for manuscript consultations as well as independent studies curated around their literary obsessions.

I make the least from writing book reviews, but it is very much where my heart is, particularly as more and more review outlets shutter. I started that work to celebrate short story collections while still an MFA student because they are so often neglected in mainstream book publicity. I will do whatever I can to continue to shout from the rooftops about books that are messy and weird and nonlinear.

Right after I became a mom, I supplemented my Columbia income (because I couldn’t yet leave the house) with teaching writing virtually at the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute and Writing Workshops.