WRITER, POET, LITERARY SCHOLAR
'A truth in art is that whose contradictory is also true.’ (Oscar Wilde)
FAKE FISH
A Near-Future Novel
In a world in which images are more persuasive than memories, a single manipulated fragment can tip everything off balance.
When a fake video goes viral and destroys a filmmaker's reputation, film student Martin becomes entangled in a web of guilt and silence. As public outrage grows, he tries to downplay his role and salvage his relationship with Eveline. But the longer he evades the truth, the bigger the distance between them.
What begins as a personal crisis develops into a rupture that impacts more than two lovers. Twenty years later, a new generation lives in a society that has radically eradicated disinformation. Stories are controlled. Fiction is forbidden. Yet the human longing for imagination cannot be suppressed, any more than the past can be erased.
Fake Fish is a compelling near-future novel about love and responsibility, about parents and children, about the desire to control one’s own story and the price paid for doing so.
The English-language version of this timely book was published in the United Kingdom in 2024 by the literary press Sparsile Books. The novel was selected as a Debut Showcase title for Scotland’s Book Week.
Publisher: Sparsile Books Ltd (14 Nov. 2024), Language: English, Paperback: 304 pages, ISBN-10: 1914399609, ISBN-13: 978-1914399602
DUTCH EDITION
The independent Dutch publisher IceBerg Books will release a Dutch edition of the novel Fake Fish -called Valse Waarheden- in May 2026. For more information, please visit the Dutch version of this website.
ESSAYS
Next to poetry and fiction, Josje Weusten writes essays on literature and creative writing, in which she connects academic insights with her personal experiences as an author and creative writing teacher. Her reflections are marked by an accessible, contemplative tone and a strong engagement with the craft of writing.
Since 2024, Josje has been a regular contributor to The Independent Publishing Magazine, which was named by Reedsy as one of the fifty most important online resources for creative writing worldwide in 2025.
In 2025, she edited the volume Beroering door verbeelding. Bijdragen over literatuur, verbeelding en vrijheid, published by Maastricht University Press. This collection of essays, photographs, and poems in Dutch and English explores literature, imagination, and freedom. It offers a unique and inviting mix of styles and pushes the boundaries of academic form by combining literary, artistic, and personal genres with scholarly modes of argument and presentation. As such, the volume addresses questions about the nature of literature, creative writing, and academic education, and perhaps most importantly, about the freedom of art and academia.
Weusten's own English contribution to the volume is an academic essay on the importance of doodling and drawing for creative writing.
The book was conceived and published as a Liber Amicorum on the occasion of Dr Jan de Roder’s retirement, and is available as open access.
SCHOLARLY BOOKS
In this book, researchers share personal, surprising, and sometimes moving stories about their work. It demonstrates that there is another way of doing research—one that makes room for emotions, confusion, humour, doubt, imagination, and chance encounters. The collection was originally written and published in English under the title The Stories We Tell, edited by Elsje Fourie and Christin Hoene.
The Dutch translation was produced by Josje Weusten, who beautifully preserves the literary tone and personal style of the authors.
The book is published by Maastricht University Press and is available as open access.
De idylle voorbij (Beyond the Ideal) by Josje Weusten examines how the social ideal of motherhood is represented in Dutch literature from 1980 to 2010. This dissertation brings together literary-sociological research and close readings of novels in an innovative way, thereby deepening our understanding of the social function of literature. Among the works she analyses are De reis naar het kind by Vonne van der Meer and Een hart van steen by Renate Dorrestein.
The book is available as open access.
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS & COURSES
Josje Weusten has been teaching creative writing and cultural and literary theory at Maastricht University for nearly twenty years.
She teaches from the conviction that developing creative writing skills leads to deeper understanding of literature and vice versa. In her courses and workshops, she therefore combines practical writing exercises with theoretical insights. She received one of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Awards in 2021.
Students at Maastricht University can take creative writing courses with her at University College Maastricht.
In addition, she organizes the biennial Maastricht University Creative Writing Summer School, which is open to anyone who wishes to write in English.
She also organises writing workshops for other universities, museums, bookshops, and secondary schools. These workshops are offered in Dutch, English, or in bilingual formats.