J. J. Steinfeld

Fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld has lived and written on Prince Edward Island (Epekwitk) since 1980, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published 25 books, including An Unauthorized Biography of Being (Stories/Ekstasis Editions/2016), Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Poetry/Guernica Editions/2017), A Visit to the Kafka Café (Poetry/Ekstasis Editions/2018), Gregor Samsa Was Never in The Beatles (Stories/Ekstasis Editions/2019), Morning Bafflement and Timeless Puzzlement (Poetry/Ekstasis Editions/2020), Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential (Poetry/Guernica Editions/2021), Acting on the Island (Stories/Pottersfield Press/2022), As You Continue to Wait (Poetry/Ekstasis Editions/2022), and My Post-Holocaust Second Generation Voice: History/Memory/Identity (Poetry/Ekstasis Editions/2025); over 60 of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States, including the full-length plays The Franz Kafka Therapy Session, The Golden Age of Monsters, and A Television-Watching Artist; the one-act plays Godot’s Leafless Tree, The Waiting Ends, The Entrance-or-Not Barroom, Freesias in Whiskey, Back to Back, No End in Sight, Flowers for the Vases, Sea Monsters, More Than Money, Imaginative Drinking, A Play of Disbelief, Memory Sounds, and In a Washroom of a Prestigious Art Gallery; and the audio plays In Becky's Name, A New Map, The Professor's Ashes, Diogenes’ Lantern, and Laugh for Sanity.