Jennifer Jacobson

Jennifer Jacobson is a mother, writer, story advocate, curriculum developer, and community gardener. She is the founder of When Children Save the Day, a project that combines storytelling and social action. Her work has been recognized with a Creative Teaching Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a Brimstone Award from the National Storytelling Network, and grants from the Community Foundation of Western Mass, as well as residencies from The Straw Dog Writers Guild and Turkey Land Cove Foundation. Jennifer’s prose appears in Switch, The Masters Review, jubilat, Chronogram, Linea, Storytelling Magazine, and elsewhere. She has an M.F.A. in fiction and currently works at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she is the director of community engagement and alumni relations for the English department, M.F.A. for Poets and Writers, and the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts & Action. From 2014 to 2022, Jennifer was the M.F.A.’s associate director as well as the director of the Juniper Summer Writing Institute and Institute for Young Writers. Jennifer currently serves as co-chair of Paperbark literary magazine, a convener for the Council on the Uncertain Human Future, and, since 2014, as an instructor for Smith’s pre-college program in creative writing.