About me

This is the formal version, basically lifted from my Suite101 profile.  But it will have to do until I get something written that’s more personal.

Jennifer Jensen is a writer and music teacher currently based in Indianapolis, but moving to Kinsale, Ireland in the summer of 2008. She has nearly 250 non-fiction articles in print publications, primarily in Indianapolis Monthly and the Indianapolis Star, but her true love is fiction.  She is the feature writer for the Writing Fiction topic at Suite101.com , and writes articles on other subjects for Suite101 as well.

She is a graduate of the Institute of Children’s Literature, and her first published story came from that course. She has a dozen children’s short stories published, some internationally, and has received two Indiana Arts Commission grants for her fiction. Her current project, a chapter book for younger readers, received the R. Karl Largent Award at the 2006 Midwest Writer’s Workshop for the best work-in-progress regardless of genre.

She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a co-founder of the Northwest Indy Children’s Writers Group, and a past member of the Society of Professional Journalists. She attends conferences and workshops both to learn and to network with editors, agents, and fellow writers. She also teaches creative writing workshops for high schoolers, and is developing a workshop for upper elementary and middle school students.

When she is not writing, Jennifer teaches Kindermusik to preschoolers and private piano lessons to older children and adults, reads voraciously, and loves to learn just about anything. She is also an avid genealogist, teaching at a genealogy conference for several years and volunteering at the local Family History Center. She majored in Elementary Education at several universities while her husband was in the Navy, and then switched to an English major at Indiana University. Someday, probably long after her children have graduated from college, she’ll actually finish her degree!