Unleash Your Story
Welcome you wondrous creature. You with your story caught in your throat, on the edge of your lips, tingling your fingertips into sharper prints. You who knows words=medicine. You who can’t wait a moment longer to use and loose your voice—that wild, astonishing music that belongs to you alone. May you and your story find sanctuary here.
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Affirmation Station
- Scott ShanksBanks, OR
Jen's workshop didn't just jump-start my writing; it jump-started me. Sitting in a room of strangers and opening up my writing, my emotional baggage, and my soul was not something that I was ready to do ... but Jen had such a profoundly welcoming intimacy around her that when I was with her I could not feel that I was with strangers. I felt safe enough to dare anything, and to go far beyond anything I had thought to dare before.
From the Blog: Story Water
Were you looking for my latest writing?
Then you've come to the right place, to get to the right place! Just click on the button for some unbuttoned stories. A little more scoop: I've started a new Patreon page and will be … [Read More]

Studies in Silence #1: Listening isn’t Reacting.
I’m studying silence right now, or maybe it’s studying me. Schooling me. Honing me. Regardless, I’m paying attention to silence. How I crave it. How I loathe it. What fear it can hold. What balm it … [Read More]

Vinegar and Frosting Don’t Mix
So I made this cake last Sunday to share with the Joy Search Party gathering in my apartment on Monday. It was a white cake with chocolate chips, and the first thing I’d baked since the car accident I … [Read More]
About Jen
Jen Violi is the author of Putting Makeup on Dead People, a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book, finalist for the Oregon Book Awards, and shortlisted for the PNBA and Oregon Spirit Awards.
As a mentor, editor, and facilitator, Jen helps writers unleash the stories they’re meant to tell, from blogs to websites to award winning books.
With advanced degrees in theology and creative writing—devoted to creating sanctuary for stories and their humans—for twenty years Jen has facilitated retreats and workshops and mentored and nurtured hundreds of writers as they find their voices, hone their manuscripts, and take creative leaps and plunges.
Jen is a columnist and regular contributor for Sweatpants & Coffee and has been a featured presenter at The Louisiana Book Festival, Wordstock, the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, A Frock-alicious Life is Calling, and the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival.[ Read More ]