is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Michigan, where she received an MFA in fiction. She is the editor of Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant, Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone (Riverhead, 2007). Her fiction and food writing have been published in numerous magazines and she received a special mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. Jenni is a literary agent at Brick House Literary Agents and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
What she remembers most about the department was the commitment of the professors. "They took us seriously and devoted considerable energy and time to our work," she writes. She credits them for introducing her to the world of contemporary fiction, the short story, and "most of what I knows about craft."
During that dizzying, frightful time known as being a senior in college, she asked one of these professors for some advice for the future. They met at the Oberlin Inn "to discuss what I might do with my degree and other highly marketable skills honed at Oberlin (contact improvisation, skateboarding, and baking wheat bread so dense it doubled as a weapon)."
Unconventionally, her professor didn't push her towards a field in publishing or editing, but suggested instead she try her hand at construction work, because, "it paid well and wouldn't interfere with the writing." She didn't take his advice literally, but did move to Brooklyn and work a series of odd jobs, including egg-selling. Eventually she found herself in the publishing world-working as an assistant to a literary agent. "All these experiences," she says, "gave me good practical experience." Throughout this uncertain time, she kept writing stories and sending them out, and eventually they started getting published. Her work has appeared in Glimmer Train, Bellevue Literary Review, Hampton Shorts, Literal Latte, and Happy.
