M. Jennings

Oyster River Pages: If you could choose one writer or artist, living or dead, as a best friend or mentor, who would it be? Why?

M. Jennings: I would wrap Margaret Atwood, the late Janet Frame, and Elena Ferrante into one mentor-person. These three writers understand girlhood, womanhood, and what it means to be a female artist and person in these times. While it’s fun to imagine working with these writers IRL, their books are already my mentors. Their writing is the kind of deeply immersive reading experience that I love.

ORP: How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your relationship to art and writing, either in the creation of it or the consumption of it?

MJ: C19 has radically changed my access to artistic communities. I live in a small town in Oregon. For me, the huge uptick in online book launches, readings, and exhibitions, has been the silver lining of these past few months. I joined a terrific workshop that is helping me finish one of my novels; before C19, the group met in person in a big city. At a higher level, C19 has deepened my belief that art matters because reading, making collages, and looking at online art exhibitions has helped me deal with the isolation.

ORP: How is your art or writing informed by current social and/or political issues?

MJ: I'm interested in a few things as a person and an artist: climate change, feminism, storytelling, and loss. These elements are threaded through all of my work. In particular, I’m drawn to allegorical storytelling for its unique ability to create political and social change.

ORP: What do you think is the most essential advice that most writers and artists ignore?

MJ: For writers, entertain the reader.

M. Jennings lives on the Oregon coast where she is revising two allegorical literary novels. Her short stories have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Fiction Southeast, and Crab Orchard Review. She has been awarded residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Jentel, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre. You can read more of her work at mjennings.com. Her instagram handle is mjennings26. Listen to her read her poetry for ORP here.