About Me : Jennifer C. Weil

About Me

Years ago, I started growing up in Los Angeles, moved to Sonoma County, bought some Root® shoes and a poncho, and only returned to L.A. to pick up my bed and my typewriter. The journey before and since has covered numbing terrain and more than one Eden: memorable time teaching middle school, getting smoke blown in my face as a live mannikin, flipping burgers, calculating numbers and health claims, teaching yoga, and writing newspaper and magazine articles. There is also non-memorable time, but I can’t remember what it is. How I wound up in the Midwest with dog, spouse, and a cultivated appreciation for snow has too epic an explanation.

As the founding director of Acts of God®, a worship performance group affiliated with Christ Church United Methodist, Santa Rosa, California, I produced, directed, and often performed in dozens of worship dramas, based upon scripture and topical issues. To the list of prompt scripts I’ve scribbled in, add too many community theatre productions to recall without a detective. For scripts, click to download.

Recent professional appearances include the title role in Mrs. Mannerly with Tipping Point Theatre Company and Julie in Pierrot, a SAG-approved film for Ringling College of Art and Design. Prior to that: Polish grandmother in a short SAG-approved student film called The 36; Mrs. William Jennings Bryan in Alleged: Reporting form the Monkey Trial, and the voices of Lulu the Llama and a peacock inThe Oogieloves in the Great Balloon Adventure. In October 2010, I directed the Midwest premiere of Gene Abravaya’s play The Book of Matthew Liebowitz. Early spring 2011, I created the role of Gretchen Manning in the world premiere of Mr. Abravaya’s feisty and poignant new play, The Final Scene. The comedy/drama was remounted in San Francisco, August 2011. I’m a member of three performance unions; I wish they’d stay out of politics and give their members more flexibility.

Words on paper include my novella, Eavesdropping: A Little Novel, custom greeting cards and poetry, the children’s books Marvin’s Lump, And Peter Said Good-bye, and William’s Gift; and ghost-written books on raising escargot and breeding chickens. Also out there are published short stories and poetry, and I am super-glued to my bookshelf’s worth of novels, stories, and poetry in various stages of pre-publication. Among them: my novel based on Samson, Samuel, and Delilah, which was the deathbed legacy of a friend; and a humectant collection of stories and poetry about the tropics. See more on the Projects Tab.

Now past are the week-long backpack trips in the remote wilderness, whether mountain, island, or valley. Give me a beach walk or a leaf strewn forest or a city street with houses that tempt me to try the front door. Give me good, and sometimes not quite good, movies; books I can’t put down and books I wish I couldn’t. Give me foods of varied color, spice, and texture. Give me friends of long acquaintance and new ones I wish I had known forever.

Finally, I dislike writing bios. They say too much and too little.