Hi! I’m Jennifer Gulbrandsen. I’m an author, content creator, podcaster, and I have a muggle career as a Digital Marketing Executive because I need structure and a retirement plan since I’m too old for a sugar daddy and my back is too stiff to strip. I know these bios are supposed to be done in the third person, but I can’t write about myself in the third person without gagging, so here we are. An unprofessional first-person bio. Chances are, you aren’t here for professionalism, anyway.
I have been writing since I was literate, but I didn’t become passionate about the craft until I had to spend half my senior year of high school at home after major surgery for a sports injury. While being home schooled while I recovered, I became passionate about writing as a craft after reading and examining Shakespeare’s MacBeth for my AP English class. Soon, I began hammering out what would later become The Secret Life of Lies on my 75lb Brother Word Processor I could haul into bed with me. If you are under 40, that last sentence might as well have been written in Greek.
I paused my writing to be a young adult doing young adult things, but picked it back up again in 2006 when blogging was starting to become a real thing. My AOL Journal ‘Jenn’s World’ soon became my blog ‘I Haz a Blog, Yo!’ where I wrote satirically about my everyday life as a stay at home mom and ‘The Real Housewives of Orange County.’ It was those recaps that got me ‘discovered’ so to speak, and my articles became syndicated on newsites through Associated Content.
Chicago Now and Yahoo! would soon come calling, and I began writing the column ‘Reality Zen With Jenn’ as well as local news and TV recaps for Yahoo! It was during this time I began to seriously work on my manuscript for The Secret Life of Lies, after my fun little novella ‘Borrowed’ showed me that I could actually finish a project. Over five years, I won several national awards for Yahoo! News, including my riveting work of journalism, ‘The Five Best Hotdogs In Chicago.’
I also dabbled in local radio and was selected as a finalist in the 2nd Annual WLS Next Talk Star, where I went down in a blaze of glory not realizing it was a political event that was deeply conservative. Imagine my surprise when Bruce Wolff grilled me about my thoughts on Benghazi, and I asked him if that was a shoe. My kids were there for that, and I really hope it’s a core memory for them.
I was also featured on WGN TV’s weekly series Chicago’s Very Own, and that’s such an honor I will carry with me forever. I will never shut up about it. Ever.
In 2017, I wrote my first teleplay, ‘Trash With Money’ for Amazon Studios. Surprisingly, it was given the Best Screenplay award at the L.A. Festival in April of 2019. I will also never, ever shut up about this. If ever you criticize me, know my retort is going to be that I am Chicago’s Very Own and I won a freaking FILM FESTIVAL.
This year, I turned ‘Trash With Money’ into an episodic fiction series available exclusively on Kindle Vella. If you read with a Kindle account, you should have some free tokens on Vella to check out the series. Don’t say I never gave you anything.
In 2018, I published my second novel, Some Die Just To Live. It’s a good book. You should read it.
From 2016-2018 I had the Your Moment of Jenn podcast which is still out there in all of it’s zany glory. If you’re into wine fueled car crashes of hilarity, give it a listen.
I have never been comfortable with the spotlight, and it caused me to hate being creative for a few years, so I focused on my career instead. I like Digital Marketing. It’s been a great career I’ve fallen into from all of this experience, and I don’t regret it at all. Having a muggle job doesn’t make you any less of an artist. It makes you an artist with options and health insurance.
These days, I’m happy creating for myself. Treating my art as a hobby rather than a monetized side hustle has brought the love back, and I’m loving writing essays, short stories, releasing my next novel Mon Amie Celeste in July 2022, and producing niche podcasts like Reign On Me and the Spotify exclusive, Wine, Music, and Stories on subjects that I’m passionate about. Only five people may want to hear about the First Empire of France or do a deep dive on Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy album while drinking Rose, but those five people are my people, and that’s what it’s always been about for me. Connecting.
I live and work in Chicago. 312 til I die. I hope you poke around and enjoy my work! I keep my social media private because even though my work is public, I’m a sensitive soul, and access to me is a privilege. We have strong boundaries over here, but I’m happy to chat about anything if you send a message on any platform!