Welcome to the Jen Waters' Pen Jen’s Inkwell Podcast! Jen wrote and performed all the original stories in the podcast. This podcast is produced by Eric Baines, who scored all the stories and poems in the series to public domain and original music. The podcast is associated with the blog of the same name, Pen Jen’s Inkwell, www.penjensinkwell.blogspot.com, which can be found on her website: www.jenwaters.com. It features the children's music and spoken word stories from her Apple Music releases, including WONDERLAND, WINTER WONDERLAND, IMPOSSIBLE THINGS, CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER, ENTIRELY BONKERS, HANDWRITTEN, HOOPS TIME, THE GREAT PUZZLE, and more.
During the summer of 1994, Jen attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. In 1999, Jen graduated as an S.I. Newhouse Scholar from the School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a major in magazine journalism and minors in music and in English and textual studies. She took the TV, radio, and film classes in sound production. She also took classes at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University. During her junior year, she studied abroad for a semester in London, England. Upon graduation, Dean Rosanna Grassi awarded her with the Henry J. Wolff Prize for the graduating senior deemed most proficient in journalism.
She has written for such Pennsylvania publications as HARRISBURG Magazine, THE PATRIOT NEWS, and THE TIMES LEADER. She also wrote for seven years in the Washington, D.C., media, mostly human-interest stories.
"Yellow Roses," a song Jen co-wrote, became the grand-prize winner in the country category of the 2005 Session-I John Lennon Songwriting Contest. She has performed at various places such as the ASCAP Writer's Showcase at the Kennedy Center with host Stephen Schwartz, Genghis Cohen, Hallenbeck's, Hotel Cafe, the Koffeehouse Sundance Film Festival Chateau, and the Durango Songwriters Expos. Music-industry veteran Judy Stakee has mentored her.
In August 2014, Jen released a 33-song collection through Pen Jen Songs called WHIMSY. In April and May 2016, she re-released the WHIMSY songs as WHIMSY FOR ONE and WHIMSY FOR TWO, each with an original Christmas song. In March 2017, she released PURITY, a 12-song collection with a pop-classical influence. In April 2019, she released SIMPLICITY, a 20-song pop collection. In March 2022, she launched FATE, 17 original pop songs.
Combining her love for music and children, she founded Pen Jen Productions and created a children's novel and musical series, THE WHIRLWIND CHRONICLES: THE MAGIC MUSIC BOX, THE HORSE GATE, and DREAMS OR DUST. She also wrote KISSES, a musical based on the life of chocolatier Milton S. Hershey.
She is an ASCAP member and a nominee for the ASCAP Joe Raposo Children's Music Award. She has hundreds of stories and pop tunes yet to be written.