Jenny O’Connell’s book project, Finding Petronella, follows her solo trek across Finland in the footsteps of a woman legendary among the gold miners of Lapland. Her writing has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, SLICE Magazine, Camas, The Stonecoast Review, and Hippocampus, and is forthcoming from the Riverfeet Press Anthology, Awake in the World, v. 2. In 2016, she edited the King Fellows Anthology, Not An Apology—a body of work by student activists exploring issues of race and identity in Portland, Maine. Jenny is a 2019 Maine Literary Award finalist. Her essay “Valley of the Bulls,” forthcoming from Appalachia Journal, was selected as the winner of the 2019 Waterman Fund Essay Contest.
Jenny earned her MFA from the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program.
Jenny has held artist residencies with the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation in Rockland, Maine, and Chulitna Lodge Research Institute in remote Alaska. She lives in Portland, Maine, where she mentors young writers as a Teaching Artist at The Telling Room, serves as Community Outreach Coordinator for Stonecoast MFA, and guides wilderness and international expeditions with youth and adults.
