Hello! My name is Jennifer Mason Anyong, but most people end up calling me Jen. I like that. As for that last name…well, I married a man (Keith) whose father is of Chinese descent but was born in the Philippines. I’m not sure if that makes my husband half Chinese or half Filipino, but he actually looks a lot like his mother.
My family is Scotch/Irish on my father’s side and Hungarian on my mother’s. There will be stories, (oh, there WILL be stories) but I’ll save that for another day.
Keith and I have a seven year-old daughter, Jemma, who we did, in fact, name after a Marvel character. My nerd status just leveled up.
I’ve always been a writer, but only recently trying it full time. Around age four, I started making little picture books using Crayola Bold Markers with No. 2 Pencil scratchings for text. I do have Our Farm still laying around somewhere, though after about 15 minutes of searching, I wasn’t able to uncover it from the piles of memories. I was, however, able to find this photo. That’s me, gussied up in my best western wear, probably about to write another silly tale. I remember around age nine, I typed up my first homemade newspaper. I printed about 30 copies on our Dot Matrix printer, tore off those fun, holey edge pieces, and delivered one to each of our neighbor’s mailboxes on our street. Later, my mom warned me that tampering with the mail is a federal offense. I was truly terrified to ever do that again! Kill joy.
I went on to take every possible journalism class in Middle School, then Yearbook and advanced courses in English all through High School. I interned at our city’s Newspaper for two summers (learned newspaper wasn’t my favorite medium) and in my senior year I was charged with the task of Editor in Chief of the Yearbook.
Naturally, I majored in journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma while minoring in creative writing. Then I worked seven years in Public Relations for a non-profit organization where I continued honing my writing and editing skills. When our daughter was born, that’s when I started dreaming of these stories, banking them in my brain, for the future. Now that she’s well on her way in first grade, I can feel the pull. The future is HERE. Won’t you come with me?
My Pilgrimage to Publication and Beyond 