About Me

Some of my earliest firm memories are of pulling out an antique typewriter in my parents' basement to write a Nancy Drew novel. I didn't finish it—frankly, I got distracted by the delicious click-clack of the keys and spent most of my time just enjoying the sound of making words—but I knew, even at age 7, that I wanted to be a writer.

Fast forward 30(ish) years, and here we are.

I've spent the better part of a decade professionally wrestling words into submission across every medium you can think of: blog posts that made people think about things differently, website copy that actually got read, scripts that somehow convinced people to care about economics (a genuine miracle), and essays that got translated into at least six languages and republished in places like Newsweek and PanAm Post. I co-wrote for popular YouTube series, co-hosted podcasts, and even managed to lead a department without breaking anything important.

But here's the thing I've discovered after all those years of explaining why X policy matters or how Y strategy works: I'm tired of having hot takes. The news cycle is exhausting, and frankly, someone else can handle the outrage du jour.

What I never get tired of thinking about is stories themselves.

Not how to use them—though that's useful—but what they are. Why humans have been telling them since we figured out how to make marks on cave walls. Why we risk death itself to tell them. Why "once upon a time" still works 4,000 years after the Epic of Gilgamesh opened with basically the same formula.

I'm fascinated by the way stories work like experience simulators for our brains, how they help us make sense of chaos, how they reveal what we value and fear and hope for. I'm endlessly curious about why some stories stick around for millennia while others disappear, why every culture has flood myths, why we keep retelling the same basic plots and somehow never get bored.

Most of all, I'm interested in the profound mystery that all stories are true, even the ones that never happened.

So that's what I write about now. Not because I have all the answers—I definitely don't—but because the questions are so damn interesting. And because in a world full of people teaching tactics and frameworks, maybe what we need is more wonder about the fundamental magic of how humans connect with each other through narrative.

My mission is simple: to create and enable compelling stories because they evoke a sense of home, belonging, and connection. I do this by trying to understand stories as deeply as possible and sharing whatever insights I stumble across along the way.

Also, I really want to make cool shit with cool people. Preferably cool shit that means something.

If that sounds like your kind of thing, stick around. We're going to explore some fascinating territory together.

“Jen is (how do the kids say?) dope. She is one of the most creative individuals that I have met. Jen’s writing is fun and full of energy. She creates sentences that not only convey her meaning but also give the right feel and tone to her work.

She is a wordsmith.”

Jon England