About

I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember, beginning with letters I used to exchange with my Dad when he was away on business trips. From there, it was adolescent poetry, the high school newspaper, college journalism assignments, freelance writing, zine publishing, blog entries. For the past 19 years, I’ve been the wearer of all hats — editor, copy writer, marketing wordsmith – as the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design business in Branford, Connecticut.

In 2006, I launched Creative Soup, an three-year, online collaboration of artists and writers dedicated to the pursuit of creativity in all its forms. Truth be told, it was the excuse I needed to reconnect to my own creative voice, which had gotten lost amidst the busy-ness of everything else.

That creative voice is inspired by the “life moments” which move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points. My writing serves as witness to these, in powerful (often humorous) vignettes of thoughts, impressions, and feelings.

In addition to writing, I explore the combination of words and visual art, creating mixed-media collages, assemblages, and art journals. I find that partnering visuals with my life-long companion of writing layers the intentions of my work, and makes the communication more palpable.

- Jen Payne

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the early years

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