Jenny Grosvenor is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at The University of Vermont. She earned her BA in English Literature from Smith College, her MA in English Education from Columbia University, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Bennington College. Over the last two decades of teaching, Grosvenor has established her own niche by designing and launching new Creative Writing course offerings in both the English Department and the Honors College at The University of Vermont, most notably Writing Toward Happiness, Crafting Point of View, Writing Science & Sustainability and, as faculty in the new Minor in Reporting and Documentary Storytelling, Writing Photojournalism. In addition to full-time teaching, advising undergraduates, and mentoring graduate students, Grosvenor has published two long-form essays in Writing On the Edge: On Writing and Teaching Writing: “The Rhetoric of Suicide Notes” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/43158912?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) and “Due Process” (Vol. 27, No. 1, Fall 2016, appropriately published alongside Stacie Lewton Rice’s “From One Human to the Next: How Stories Can Save Our Lives”). One of Grosvenor’s shorter pieces, “Researching Rhetorically,” appears in The Bennington Review. In addition, she wrote the “Introduction: On Point of View,” edited, and published an anthology of student fiction, nonfiction, and poetry titled Crafting Point of View:Experimentation, Imitation, & Exploration in the Creative Writing Process (https://www.amazon.com/Crafting-Point-View-Experimentation-Exploration/dp/1719043396 )—an obsession in Grosvenor’s own writing endeavors, as evidenced in shifts between second- and first-person in her memoir, Tell.
Jenny Grosvenor’s two passions are teaching and writing, both of which require vulnerability and truth-telling. She’s often heard joking with her students when they fear making mistakes, “it’s tough to be human.”
This willingness to tell in order to help others can be seen in her recent article published in the Culture section of The Daily Beast, July 18, 2021 (linked here through BishopAccountability.org):
Here, Grosvenor demonstrates the courage it takes to tell life stories that carry shame and stigma. She believes wholeheartedly that the sharing of just such stories will bring healing to writers and others with similar traumatic experiences; thus, the title of her memoir, Tell.
The writing of Tell, an investigative memoir into the worlds of priest abuse and loss by suicide, gained top priority last year when, on sabbatical, Grosvenor earned a Fellowship at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) and completed an Artist’s Residency at Gullkistan Center for Creativity in Iceland. Both these opportunities gifted her the time and nourishment needed to complete a full manuscript draft and revision—and an epiphany in Tell’s reorganization on her final stopover at The Swan House in Reykjavik. She is currently querying agents and book presses to bring this story to the public.
For ongoing professional development and to sharpen the practice of her craft, Grosvenor regularly participates in writers’ programs (San Francisco, Yale, Cuba) and attends writing and media conferences: Association of Writing Professionals, Portland and Boston; The Stories We Carry: Meditation and Writing Conference/Workshop, with Dani Shapiro, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health; Vermont College of Fine Arts, Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, Fiction Workshop with Andre Dubus III; and The Writers’ Hotel, an MFA-style conference where she was chosen to be the Teaching Assistant for Creative Nonfiction, and most recently, The College Media Association‘s Student Media Advisor Certification and the Fall and Spring Conferences.
Here’s a recent article about her new role as Interim Student Media Advisor: https://www.uvm.edu/cas/news/new-student-media-advisor-puts-students-first
Prior to moving to a Vermont mountaintop, having four babies, and experiencing the tragedy of her husband’s suicide, Grosvenor worked as a copyeditor for Time-Life Books and a writer/producer for LIFE and Sports Illustrated magazines. She wrote scripts and produced large-scale advertising sales presentations, most notably, “LIFE: The Legend Continues” and “Sports Illustrated: Get the Feeling.”
Grosvenor never sits idle, writing-wise. During her years as a mom, she wrote freelance articles for a local business magazine, Creating Excellence, and copy for an advertising agency, Silver Cloud Design. While having babies, with her husband still alive, Grosvenor took the job of Public Relations Director for Bolton Valley Ski Resort. As the children grew, she edited multiple school and church newsletters: The Gator Gazette (Palm City, FL), The Apostle (St. John’s in the Mountains), and New Eyes: The Creative Writing Magazine of Stowe Elementary School.
Among these teaching and writing accomplishments to date, Grosvenor remains most proud of the four children she nurtured through tragic loss, beyond painful reckoning, and into adulthood: Alexander, Olivia, Luke, and Hunter have established successful lives of their own. “Mama Bear,” as they call her, is most passionate about publishing the memoir, Tell, so that she may help others by sharing her story of suicide, priest abuse, and survival. Grosvenor lives in the village of Stowe, Vermont, in the empty nest (also known as Casa of the Revolving Door) toward which her partner’s and her offspring—seven in total plus their significant others—often flock.
For more about her teaching and a current Curriculum Vitae (CV), visit: https://www.uvm.edu/cas/english/profiles/jenny_grosvenor