About Jen Payne

Jen Payne is inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points. Her writing serves as witness to these in the form of poetry, creative non-fiction, flash fiction and essay. When she is not exploring our connections with one another, she enjoys writing about our relationships with nature, creativity, and mindfulness, and how these offer the clearest path to finding balance in our frenetic, spinning world.

Very often, her writing is accompanied by her own photography and artwork. As both a graphic designer and writer, Jen believes that partnering visuals and words layers the intentions of her work, and makes the communication more palpable.

She is the author of two books: LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness (2014), a collection of essays, poems and original photography, and the poetry book Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind (2017). Both can be purchased here.

Jen is the owner is Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993, based in Branford, Connecticut. She is a member of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, the Connecticut Poetry Society, Guilford Arts Center, and the Guilford Poets Guild.

Installations of her poetry were featured in Shuffle & Shake, an exhibition at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven (2016), and Inauguration Nation at Kehler Liddel Gallery in New Haven (2017). Her poems have been selected for the World Enough Writers Coffee Poems Anthology, and Chapter & Verse: Return, a curated poetry event in April 2018. She has been published by The Aurorean, Six Sentences, the Story Circle Network, WOW! Women on Writing, and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery & Community Health.

• A Way with Words…, Pam Johnson, Senior Staff Writer, Shore Publishing
• Art council’s ‘Universe’ exhibit opening in Gallery at Whitney Center, Joe Amarante, New Haven Register, May 2017
• New Haven artists, shaken and stirred, react to Trump inauguration, Joe Amarante, New Haven Register, January 2017
• “Shuffle & Shake” Dances with Time, Allan Appel, New Haven Independent, July 2016
• The Perch, Spring 2016
• Branford author Jen Payne invites us to Look Up!, Donna Doherty, New Haven Register, October 2014
• Serving Up Creative Soup, Susan Talpey, Shore Publishing, September 2008

Profile photo by Branford artist Christine Chiocchio, www.christinechiocchio.com.

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The Early Years

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