Anna Iltnere

Agent: Allison Remcheck Pernetti

Formerly a journalist covering the Baltic and Scandinavian contemporary art scenes, Anna Iltnere now follows her passion – a slow life by the sea.

When she moved to an old wooden house by the Baltic Sea, she started to collect books about the sea. In 2018 she opened the Sea Library in one of the rooms. There are now over 800 books, including an edition on boatbuilding from 1909, the oldest copy in the Library, donated by a retired local captain.

Her essays have appeared in Seaborne Magazine, A La Luz, Sultan's Seal and elsewhere, and she has also been published in an art book Radical Fauna by Angela Cockayne alongside Cal Flyn, Philip Hoare, Rupert Read and others.

The Sea Library has been featured on BBC Radio 4 Open Book, Sirene Magazine, and mentioned on Lit Hub. Her preface will introduce the forthcoming The Bloomsbury Handbook to the Blue Humanities. 

She lives in Jūmala, Latvia, with her husband Emīls, their sons Kristians and Niklāvs, an old cat Bear and a dog named Nemo. Thanks to her passion, she has found a job at the National Library of Latvia. 

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