Loren Jenner, 1970
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Loren Jenner was born in Minnesota in April 1969. She lived with her mom and dad in the northern part of the state until she was about a year old. She has two brothers and one sister, and her father and father's family raised her for most of her life. She spent most of her childhood living in a small northern town near Duluth, then lived in the suburbs of Minneapolis/St. Paul as a teenager.
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As a child, Loren loved to ride her bike and play outdoors with her cousins. She began to write poetry and short stories as a teenager and studied very hard in school. She actively participated and lettered as a clarinetist in band, played tenor sax in the jazz band, and participated in the basketball and softball teams. She won a state competition in 1986 for participation in a woodwind ensemble, and she graduated with honors from Irondale High School near St. Paul in 1987. After graduating, she took two boxes and a suitcase with her to the Mountain West. She attended Ricks College (BYI-I) as a music major, and spent as much as five hours a day practicing the piano, clarinet and trumpet.
Realizing that she needed to heal some deeply painful memories in her life, she went back to her roots in Minnesota. While there she experienced a radical spiritual breakthrough. One influence on her development was The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. This book brought so much comfort and wisdom to her that sometimes she would spend as much as four or five hours on only one page. She met her first true love, another woman, not long after that. They were deeply in love and experienced many wonderful, healing moments together. When it ended, it was difficult to leave behind, but she has never forgotten the influence of this special person.
Loren began writing her first book, Warrior in the Mist, while living in Minneapolis in 1991. The book began as small essays that Loren would throw in the top drawer of her desk. One day she pulled them out and noticed a theme running throughout, so she acted on inspiration to write her first book. She first thought she was done in 1992 when she completed two sections, but then realized it wasn't quite finished when a nagging feeling inside of her wouldn't go away.
This gnawing feeling eventually pointed westward, so she relocated to The San Francisco Bay Area. She continued to work on Warrior in the Mist for the next five years at places like Ocean Beach in San Francisco and Bodega Bay, a small fishing community on the Sonoma Coast. She would sit in the sand dunes working out its meter, rhyme and symmetry. No doubt that Gibran's influence can be felt while reading this work.
During this sojourn, Loren worked for five years in the financial printing business as a desktop publisher and proofreader. She loved designing and scrutinizing anything to do with the written word. She even started a small publishing company and learned how to bind books by hand. Following her passion, she hand bound Warrior in the Mist, did a couple readings in The Bay Area and sold them.
Eventually she decided to go back to college, so she moved to northern California to attend Humboldt State University. There she earned her honorary Bachelor of Arts degree in English and minor in Music. During one summer, she immersed herself into a new story about a young Mormon woman who has trouble reconciling her religion and sexual feelings toward other women. Spirited Yearling Wounded birthed three months later, and from 2005 to 2006, she promoted the story in Utah. She really enjoyed getting out into predominantly Mormon communities and telling her story.
Right now Loren is working on her next book, soon to be announced, and teaching English in South Korea.
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Spirited Yearling Wounded
Email Loren
Warrior in the Mist
Loren's Blog
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Handstitched copy of
Warrior in the Mist
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