About
Genevieve Kathryn Sedlack Waller is an award-winning short story writer and essayist whose work has appeared in multiple publications in the U.S. and abroad. In 2024, she completed her first novel, a work of literary fiction about photojournalists navigating personal and professional conflicts during the 2015 migrant crisis in Europe (as yet unpublished). She now is working on her first short story collection as well as her second novel, a contemporary tale that draws on Nordic myths and traditions to explore the impact of climate change.
In 2018, Genevieve's story "Here Is Where the Taxi Driver Set His Wife on Fire" was selected from 4,000 entries as a runner-up for the Chicago Tribune Nelson Algren Literary Award. "The Most Wonderful Time of Year' was selected the same year as a finalist for the Hemingway Shorts Award and, in 2020, “Soft” placed first in the Hypertext Review Short Story Contest. Her work has appeared online at Feminine Collective, and in print with the Timberline Review and several themed collections, including 2022's Almost, published by Norway's Oslo Writers League, and Chicago Mosaic, a Big Shoulders Books non-fiction anthology about Chicago immigrants' experiences, published in 2023.
She was chosen by partners at Story Studio Chicago and the Himalayan Writers Retreat to attend the March 2023 international retreat located in Satkhol, Uttarakand, India. In April 2024, she joined the WRITEABILITY Guild Member Residency, held at the historic Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Knoxville, Tennsesse, and was a resident with Write On Door County in Wisconsin's famed upper peninsula in May 2024.
A former print and radio journalist and oral storytelling teaching artist, she continues to work as a narrative strategist and communicator. She serves as an Associate Board Member of Story Studio Chicago and is a Board Member for WRITEABILITY, a non-profit in defense of the imagination.
Genevieve, a fourth-generation, city-dwelling Chicagoan, is an avid walker and hiker, activities that support her ability to focus and hone her work. When not exploring the world, she relishes the opportunities her hometown provides to inspire and feed her curiousity, interests, and amateur pursuits--photography, printmaking, and gardening among them.