Joey Bahlsen

Joey Bahlsen is a writer, designer and translator from Berlin. He holds a BA in Philosophy and Music from the University of Sussex and an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh. His writing has appeared in minor literature/s, cake magazine and The Wild Word, among others. From 2017 to 2025 he was editor and art director of stadtsprachen magazin. His poetry was shortlisted for the Into the Void Poetry Prize 2020. Bahlsen has translated texts by Sharon Otoo, Donna Stonecipher, William Cody Maher, Alice Miller, Göksu Kunak and others.

In 2025, he was awarded a Work Stipend for Non-German Literature from the Berlin Senate. 

What brought you to Berlin? Love? World politics? Or was it a coincidence?

I spent most of my childhood in Berlin, but since I grew up bilingual and also write in English, I felt the need to leave Berlin several times. Leaving Berlin is easy, but I've always been drawn back.

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What do you love about Berlin?

My family & friends, the many bakeries, the live music, the bookshops, and above all the brilliant libraries.

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What do you miss in Berlin?

Parties without Techno.

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What is your favorite spot in Berlin?

All the blue spaces: Landwehrkanal, the Panke, Krumme Lanke, Rummelsburger Bucht etc.

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Which existing literary work do you wish you had written?

"The Waves", by Virginia Woolf or "Cheri", by Jo Ann Beard.

2020. "out the blue: september". Shortlist. Into the Void Poetry Prize. Vancouver, Canada.

2025. "Time is a strange feeling not the hand round my throat" Work Stipend for non-German Literature. Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, Berlin, Germany