About the author

Jennifer graduated in 2008 from Bridgewater College of Virginia, a liberal arts college, with a B.A. in English.  She completed her M.A. in literature at Wake Forest University in May 2011. She plans to go on to pursue a Ph.D. in English, focusing on early modern literature.

Her scholarly interests include travel writing, Shakespearean performance, the literature of New Zealand, theatre and nationalism, postcolonial theory, linguistics in fantasy novels, and conflict literature.

A “few” of her favorite authors are William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, Christopher Marlowe, George Orwell, Pearl Buck, Victor Hugo, Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Nawal El Saadawi, J.M. Coetzee, Arundhati Roy, Irene Zabytko, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Elizabeth Strout.

Her non-literary interests include dancing of all kinds (ballroom, contra, swing, folk), music, theatre, creative writing, Ultimate Frisbee, drinking good wine, and riding horses.

PROJECTS

Publications Editor and Writer - Classical Conversations MultiMedia
2005 – present

• Words Aptly Spoken: Short Stories
• Words Aptly Spoken: American Documents
• Words Aptly Spoken: Children’s Literature
• Words Aptly Spoken: American Literature
• Words Aptly Spoken: British Literature
• Discovering Atomos
• Classical Acts and Facts Science Cards (4 sets)

Web Writer and Designer – Classical Conversations
2007 – present

• Blog design and maintenance: http://1smartmama.blogspot.com
• Blog management: http://leighbortins.com/blogger

PUBLICATIONS

• “Off the Shoulder.” Philomathean 35, Bridgewater College, April 2008. Fiction.
• “Anything but Average.” Brio & Beyond. June 2006. Nonfiction.
• “Dealing in Unmentionables: The truth about sex trafficking.”  Philomathean 33, Bridgewater College, April 2006. Nonfiction.

PRESENTATIONS

• “‘Nothing But the Cigars’: Tobacco, Narrative, and Character in Lady Audley’s Secret.” Reading Material: Textual and Cultural Objects. 6th annual graduate student conference, University of Wisconsin-Madison, March 2010.
• “Kallipolis to Christminster: Social Stratification and the Man in Jude the Obscure.” That Which Moves: The Kinetic Nature of Language and Literature. 10th annual EGSA conference, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, January 2010.
• “Trumpet to a Red-Look’d Anger: Paulina’s Courtly Speech in The Winter’s Tale.” 29th annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum, Plymouth State University, April 2008
• “Recreating the Restoration Woman: Tate’s A History of King Lear.” Mid-America Theatre Conference, March 2008
• “Recreating the Restoration Woman: Tate’s A History of King Lear.” VMI Undergraduate Research Shakespeare Conference, Virginia Military Institute, November 2007
• “Awakening from a Dream: Activity and Passivity in The Dream of the Rood.” 2nd annual Undergraduate Conference on Literature and Creative Writing, Tusculum College, March 2006