Jennifer first picked up a guitar in 6th grade when her parents wouldn't buy her a piano. She took lessons through eighth grade, but she hated practicing and never did. Making up songs was more fun, although she never wrote anything down until over ten years later. She did go back to lessons her junior year of high school, but this time she had no time to practice. One day in third grade her music teacher asked the class if they thought anyone's voice stood out and she picked Jennifer. Jennifer ran home to tell her mother, wanting a "Brady Bunch" moment, but something like "That's nice" was uttered to Jennifer's disappointment. She took the compliment, though, and performed a different ABBA song in each talent show from 5th-8th grade. Some would ask "Didn't you sing that song last year?" She was never offered solos in class, even though assignments were made by the raising of a hand. True she did not raise her hand for the last solo, since she did not want to wear a bikini top on stage with bananas on her head. At one time she wanted to study music in college, but the realization hit her that she might not be that good. All the solos in chorus went to the cheerleaders, while Jennifer played the tree in "Little Red Riding Hoodlum" a part she invented herself so that she could have a part and a part that had no speaking or singing involved, but which was the best part of the whole pathetic show. She then joined a choir in college where everyone sang so perfectly that she assumed she was worse than everyone else and did not join a second year. The guitar continued to travel with her from dorm room to sorority room to apartment and she would occasionally pick it up and make up songs. She heard floor-mates whisper outside her door and call others to listen and then those tell her they thought it was a CD. But she was too embarrassed because she was sure her guitar playing sucked. She is still sure of that but for some reason most people don't notice. Meanwhile she hated her classes and quit student teaching and went to grad school to become a librarian. When school was over and she was back in Illinois forgotten by friends and boyfriend she thought "What now?" So she immersed herself in projects like biking and traveling and writing and writing songs, determined to someday sing at an open mic night. It took two years to prepare seven songs. She was awful, but friends who attended said they liked it and the host said she had a beautiful voice. It was a good thing she believed this because if she had heard the tape of the first open mic performance sooner than two years later after she finally got the dat tape transferred to CD she would have quit. Now songs flow from her hands and mouth. If she had time she could easily write song after song. She never knows what they will be about. She never says "I will write a song about this today." Instead she plays some chords or half chords or made up chords and a melody immerges. Words then come out of her mouth. Most of it does not make sense, so she now tapes herself singing and replays it. She picks out phrases that could possibly mean something or that flow well with the music and then she writes other words to go with the theme of the song. In her head they almost all make sense, but she fully realizes that most people will have no clue what some of the songs are about. Jennifer began writing songs to keep her mind off things, continued to sing to prove herself, and now does it because she enjoys it and wants to share the songs she creates. In 1999 she created a tape of her songs for friends along with over 10 disclaimers. It started out as a joke, but people actually liked it despite the static and multiple clicks in between songs from her tiny tape recorder. She wanted to create a CD, but couldn't figure it out on her computer. The project would have been dismissed except that to celebrate the end of student teaching she wandered into a bar for a drink and to relax and met someone who told her about a guy, J.J Myers who could record the music for a reasonable price. She called him and finished recording in two evenings, amazed that the songs sounded better on CD than to her ear or on tape. In her real life Jennifer has been a children's librarian in a public library since 1996 and will soon be a high school librarian so she can have summers off to travel, play music, and write. She has written several articles for librarians and a book about how to get teenagers to read called Booktalking that Works (Neal-Schuman Publishers, 2001), which is available on amazon.com. She is working on many other writing projects besides music, including two teen novels, and really just wants to live in the mountains and not work.