Jen Bryant

Jen Bryant (born 1960) is an American poet, novelist, and children's writer.

Bryant has won several awards for her work, including the Robert F. Sibert International Book Medal for The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus, the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award, and the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award for A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, and the Schneider Family Book Award for Six Dots: A Story of Young Louis Braille.

Two of her books, The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus and A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, have been awarded Caldecott Honors for Melissa Sweet's artwork.

Bryant (née Jennifer Fisher) was born in Easton, Pennsylvania and grew up in Flemington, New Jersey.

Bryant grew up next to a funeral home, where her father and grandfather were undertakers.

She was fascinated by the manual typewriter her father used and would "try and copy whatever material happened to be lying around: drafts of obituaries. And what are obituaries, really, but one’s life summed up in a paragraph or two? Good ones leave an impression of the person as an individual. I suppose as I practiced typing them, I must have absorbed some of the craft behind the writing of these little ‘biographies'."

She graduated from Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, New Jersey, in 1978 and attended Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she received her bachelor's degree in French and minored in German and secondary education.

After graduating from Gettysburg College, Bryant taught French and German at Paul VI Catholic High School in Chantilly, Virginia, where she also coached their cross country teams.

After moving with her family to Chester County, Pennsylvania, Bryant began to write poetry, to study independently with poet Tina Barr, and to host poetry readings in local independent bookstores.

Encouraged and mentored by authors Eileen Spinelli and Jerry Spinelli, she began to write picture books and novels in verse and to submit them to publishers.

She continued to teach and to write while obtaining a M.A. in English from Arcadia University in 1999, where she was mentored by poet David Keplinger.

In 1999, Bryant taught writing and children's literature at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania, and delivered lectures and workshops for schools and colleges.

She continued writing poetry for adults and novels and picture books for children, eventually focusing on children's literature.

Bryant's writing for children has been recognized with the Robert F. Sibert International Book Medal, the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor Award, and the Schneider Family Book Award.

In May 2013, along with Julia Chang Bloch and David Gergen, Bryant received an honorary doctorate degree from Gettysburg College, her alma mater.

She currently serves on the Board of Trustees for Gettysburg College.

Bryant lives with her family in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania.

Bryant's poems and articles have appeared in Highlights magazine and Image, and others.

Her work is anthologized in Rush Hour: A Journal of Contemporary Voices (Delacorte Press); You Just Wait, The Poetry Friday Anthology; The Poetry Anthology for Middle School (all Pomelo Press); and One Minute Till Bedtime (Little, Brown).

Several children’s books by Bryant have been translated into Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Hebrew.

Six Dots, her biography of inventor Louis Braille, is available in a print braille edition.

A Splash of Red: The Life and Art of Horace Pippin was adapted for the stage by the Seattle Repertory Theatre.