BIO | Jen Knox | Writer, Meditation Teacher

Author Bio:

The Founder and Executive Director of Unleash Creatives, Jen Knox is an educator and storyteller who teaches writing, leadership, and meditation.

Her books include the short story collection The Glass City (Hollywood, CA: Winner, Prize Americana for Prose), and the novels We Arrive Uninvited (Steel Toe Books) and Chaos Magic (Kallisto Gaia Press, forthcoming).

Jen's writing has earned multiple awards. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have been featured in textbooks, classrooms, and publications in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Turkey, India, and Scotland. Her fiction appears in The Best Small Fictions (Braddock Avenue Books), The Adirondack Review, Sivana East, Chicago Tribune's Printers Row, Chicago Quarterly Review, Cosmonauts Avenue, Crannog, Cutthroat Magazine, Elephant Journal, Fairlight Books, Fiction Southeast, Juked, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, MJI News, Poor Claudia, The Saturday Evening Post, The Santa Fe Writers Project Quarterly, NPR, Short Story America, and Sequestrum, among over a hundred other publications. Read many of her stories here.

Jen has had the pleasure to read her work for Gemini Ink in San Antonio, Texas; Eastfield College near Dallas, Texas; Otterbein University in Ohio; Busboys and Poets in Washington DC; Columbus Arts Festival in Ohio; Youngstown Lit; Thurber House; KGB in New York; Cervena Barva Press in Massachusetts; the San Miguel de Allende Conference; AWP and elsewhere.

Jen founded and is the Executive Director of Unleash Creatives, a holistic arts organization that provides writing, mind-body coaching, and art services. For visual arts services, additional workshops, and more, go to unleashcreatives.net

Mission and Vision:

I write to explore. I teach to empower.

Storytelling is about exploring the nuances of life, the anguish within beauty and the wisdom within pain. When we hold our stories inside, they weigh us down. When we release them, we find not only voice but also perspective.

I am an educator and storyteller who teaches leadership, writing, and meditation - sometimes all at once. Every day, I write with the aim of asking new and better questions. I teach with the aim of helping others to do the same.

My vision is to continue on, words to page, and to provide creativity coaching and mind-body services that enable you to break blocks, create the life you want, and make the art you were meant to make.

Jen's holistic training and experience:

MFA, Bennington College
BA, Otterbein University
Lecturer, The Ohio State University
ICF-Certified Professional Coach
Lecturer, San Antonio Community College
Director, Gemini Ink
200hr through Uplifted™ Yoga YTT
Kundalini Training RaMa Institute
Yoga instructor at Kula Yoga and Wellness
Meditation instructor at Insight Timer
Science of Well-Being Course at Yale University

2024 SHORT WRITING BIO (full press kit is here)

Jen Knox is an educator and storyteller who teaches writing, leadership, and meditation. Her first novel, We Arrive Uninvited, won the Steel Toe Books Award, and her second novel, Chaos Magic, is forthcoming from Kallisto Gaia Press. She is also the author of The Glass City, which won the Press Americana Prize for Prose. Jen's short fiction can be found in Chicago Tribune, Prose Online, McSweeney's Internet Quarterly, The Saturday Evening Post, and more. She won CutBank’s Montana Prize in Nonfiction for "Disembodied" and the San Miguel Contest for her essay, "Teeth." Jen is the proud recipient of grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council and the Ohio Arts Council to complete a collection of narrative essays.