Born in a small German town above the Rhine river, I was always the first one on the trains to adventure in the great wide world. I went to summer schools in France, took scholarships in Italy, was a DAAD/ Fulbright student in Middlebury, VT., a scholar at the IWT Center of Rhodes, the University of Milan, the Literaturhaus Munich ecc. As a student, I waited tables at winefests and carnival sessions to earn the money for Eurorail-passes and plane tickets to explore the continent from Greece to Gibraltar, and across the USA from coast to coast. I guess I have some Nomadic genes.
Besides traveling, I have always loved languages, reading and writing. I graduated with an MA in German, American and Italian Studies at the Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz, worked as a journalist, writer, translator and interpreter, and lived part of many years on the Spanish island of Ibiza. There, I translated a book on Ibizan ethnology and wrote my PhD-thesis on the Jewish writer Claire Goll and female identity in the arts. After some stints in academic Ivory towers, I decided to get a training as a scriptwriter and wrote a number of scripts for TV-movies. In German, I also have one (award winning) novel, many short stories, essays and other non-fiction published.
For some years now, I have been living on both sides of the Big Pond, in Mainz, Germany, and Dallas, TX., where I realized that after years of TV-writing I burnt to turn back to fiction. My first short story in the English language, “Goodbye, Shoes” was published in January, and now I´m thrilled to announce my second novel –my first in English–, titled “Island of Dead Gods.”

See Interview by Voyage Dallas – http://voyagedallas.com/interview/daily-inspiration-meet-verena-mahlow/

Advocate Magazine Love Storyhttps://lakehighlands.advocatemag.com/2022/01/31/verena-mahlow-and-alan-love-story/

Scholarships / awards (selection)

Literary award (1st prize “Frauengeschichten”-Wettbewerb des Gustav Lübbe-Verlags) for the novel “Ein Mann für den Dreizehnten”
Scholarship of the KMA-Drehbuchakademie München/Ludwigshafen (screenwriters´academy)
“Limburg”-award for “Mein Schweigen (short story)
Stipend of the Bertelsmann-foundation for the projected novel “Im Monat des KRR” (now “Island of Dead Gods”)
Martha-Saalfeld-award of the Ministery of Culture Rhenania-Palatinate
Writers´residency of Rhodes, Greece (Unesco)