About Jennifer

My criticism has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Science, and I’m a member of the National Book Critics Circle. My essays have appeared in Six Hens Journal, Barnes & Noble Review, and the Los Angeles Times op-ed pages. My short fiction won an Honorable Mention from Glimmer Train magazine, and a recent essay was a finalist for the Masters Review New Voices contest. (You can read selections of my work here.) I was also the Writer in Residence at the Wellstone Center in the Redwoods in 2015 and an artist-in-residence at Hypatia-in-the-Woods in 2022. I am currently represented by Stephanie Cabot at Susanna Lea Associates.

I was first trained in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where I received two yearlong scholarships and two award nominations. I also honed my skills at the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop, an Iowa Writers’ Workshop Summer Intensive, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the international Leopardi Writing Conference, and the Lighthouse Writers’ Workshop. I’ve received several awards and nominations, and in June of 2019, I earned a Masters of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing and Literature from the Bennington College Writing Seminars.

Since November of 2018, I have facilitated lively, elevated book group discussions of contemporary literary fiction with readers in the Los Angeles area. In 2020, I launched a literary organization, To the Lighthouse, to formalize and expand my services. Through To the Lighthouse, I offer professional book group facilitation and host author events and retreats.

In 2001, I sat my first 10-day silent retreat with Goenka, which began my Buddhist meditation practice in the Theravada tradition. Since then, I’ve sat ~250 days of silent retreats of a week or longer, including one- and two-month retreats. In 2006, I completed the two-year Dedicated Practitioners Program of study and practice at Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I am forever in debt to my many teachers, especially Jack Kornfield, Trudy Goodman, Gil Fronsdal, Ajaan Geoff, and Guy Armstrong. I led meditation and dharma classes and sitting groups in the LA area for a decade.

Before I was an artist, I was a scientist. I received a BS in physics from MIT and a PhD in astrophysics from UCLA, and I conducted post-doctoral research in gamma-ray astrophysics at Stanford. I still teach physics part-time at Santa Monica College.