Jenny O’Connell is a writer, outdoor guide, speaker, and teacher of creative writing. Her body of work explores themes of outdoor adventure, wilderness, environment, vulnerability, feminism, risk, and joy; and reminds people, when they forget, that they are alive. Finding Petronella, Jenny’s debut book project, traces her 2014 solo trek across Finland following the footsteps of a legendary woman beyond the Arctic Circle. Wild Story, her Substack, explores the place where an outdoor life meets the creative journey.

This May, Jenny is setting out on a source to sea expedition with photographer Andy Gagne, kayaking 100 miles via the Crooked River to Casco Bay to raise awareness around the deforestation happening along a crucial watershed in Maine, and to highlight the many people and organizations who are working together in unique and creative ways to protect Maine’s forests and waters for future generations. Follow their adventure.

Jenny’s award-winning nonfiction has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Backcountry, Down East, SLICE Magazine, Appalachia Journal, Maine Magazine, Decor Maine, A.T. Journeys, Hippocampus, Camas, Stonecoast Review, and elsewhere. A 2019 Maine Literary Award finalist and Pushcart Prize nominee, Jenny has held artist residencies at Monson Arts, Hewnoaks, Norton Island Residency for Writers and Artists, the KISMET Foundation, the Ellis-Beauregard Foundation, Feathered Ink, and Chulitna Lodge Research Institute. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast.

Jenny’s 14 years as an outdoor guide have brought her all over the globe leading backpacking, sea kayaking, cultural exchange, winter adventure, and river expeditions from the Peruvian Andes to the wild waters of her home state of Maine. She is a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Seguinland Institute, where she facilitates university-level creative writing intensives based around craft, climate change, and the outdoors. Jenny teaches creative writing workshops at Maine Media Workshops, Hugo House, and The Telling Room; offers craft and professional development seminars at Stonecoast MFA‘s biannual residencies; and guides creative writing-focused outdoor expeditions in collaboration with Hurricane Island Outward Bound and Adventures in Good Company. She never leaves home without a trusty pair of adventure pants and a waterproof ukulele.

Jenny is represented by Jamie Chambliss and Steve Troha of Folio Literary. She lives in Portland, Maine.