I’m a writer, performer, and writing workshop facilitator based in the SF Bay Area, and I’ve led transformative writing workshops in the SF Bay Area for more than fifteen years.
I write fiction and creative nonfiction primarily about sexuality and sexual violence.
I’m an experienced writing workshop facilitator and have been certified in the Amherst Writers & Artists method, described in Pat Schneider’s book Writing Alone and With Others, Oxford University Press (2003).
Interviews with Jen:
“Jen Cross on Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino,” May 2018
Talking Writing Magazine: Video Interview with Elizabeth McShaneabout writing to heal from sexual abuse—and to find joy (Also at Talking Writing: What Writing About Trauma Can Do, an excerpt from Chapter One of Writing Ourselves Whole)
Writing As Erotic Practice: Podcast with Chris Rose of Pleasure Mechanics! We chatted about how writing can be a tool to unlock more erotic freedom and possibility, and how reading erotica help us discover what is possible for our own sex lives…
Jen Cross on healing trauma, dissociation, & the erotic: My conversation with Dawn Serra for the Sex Gets Real podcast
Jen in conversation with Kori Doty on the Drugs, Sex, and How We Roll! podcast!
Jennifer Cross Interview: Writing Ourselves Whole: Conversation with Dr. Carol Queen for the Good Vibrations blog
Writing Ourselves Whole: Transformation, Healing, & Queer Sex: An interview with Sinclair Sexsmith at the Sugarbutch Chronicles!
“Grad Student Jen Cross’ Book Helps Sex Abuse Survivors Heal through Writing” – SFSU Liberal and Creative Arts News, Jan 22, 2018
“#metoo”, Golden Gate Xpress, Feb 21, 2018
Jen Cross: An Interview with the Author of Writing Ourselves Whole. An interview with Laurie and Debbie at the Body Impolitic Blog
Check out my conversation with Amy Butcher for the Pleasure Lab podcast (a Body Trust project), Season 2, #7, 11/12/17
I got to chat with Melinda Adams, aka Lilycat, on Lilycat On Stuff on October 8, 2017 (FCC Free Radio!).
In 2009, I got to talk with Britt Bravo and the Arts and Healing Network about what happens when survivors gather to write their stories; we discussed the Writing Ourselves Whole workshops, the transformative uses of writing, and more: Interview with Britt Bravo about Writing Ourselves Whole (mp3)
You can read about my erotic writing groups in Caryn Mirriam Goldberg and Ruth Farmer’ collection, Transformative Language Arts in Action (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014).
Dorian Katz wrote about our first writing group (and the Dirty Ink troupe that grew out of that group) in Clamour Magazine, Volume 34, Sept. 2005.
Toward the end of 2011, I got to go to UC Davis as a part of the Conversations with Writers program to talk about erotic writing as liberatory practice. Here’s a link to a video of the talk — Please note: This talk opens with a sexually-explicit reading.
In 2013, I returned to UC Davis to speak about using writing to transform trauma, as a part of UC Davis’ year-long campus engagement with the Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide. (Click here to access a list of lecture videos from that series; scroll down to find my presentation on 10/31.)
In 2013, Art Animal magazine did an interview with Carol Queen and me about the Erotic Reading Circle.
I got to talk with Jianda Monique about the workshops and writing as a transformational/liberatory process on her Lesbian Relationships Podcast.
Here’s another brief interview on the Goddard IMA blog where I talk some about how I came to be doing this work.
Jen’s background:
In 2018, I received my MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University.
In 2003, I received my MA in Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where I studied and wrote about the ways in which erotic writing can be used as a tool for sexual- and self-healing.
Before and after that, I worked at social justice organizations in Portland, ME, and San Leandro, CA, as an advocate and psychoeducational group facilitator for domestic violence survivors.
A writer/performer, I’ve gotten to feature at such events as Perverts Put Out, Writers With Drinks, the National Queer Arts Festival, and the Queer Open Mic, LitCrawl, and the Godless Perverts Story Hour.
I’ve led workshops and/or performed at:
- Stanford University, Wesleyan University, the University of California at Davis, Dartmouth College, the University of California at San Francisco, Brown University, Tufts University, Goddard College, the University of Oregon at Eugene, Evergreen State University, Southern Oregon University, Pacific School of Religion, Art Institute of San Francisco;
- the Power of Words/Transformative Language Arts annual conference;
- the Femme Conference;
- Survivorship and the Survivorship annual conference;
- San Francisco Women Against Rape;
- Bay Area Women Against Rape;
- Community United Against Violence;
- San Francisco PRIDE;
- the UCSF Med Center’s Art for Recovery Program;
- the Center for Sex and Culture;
- staff at the UCSF Office of Medical Education program;
- the Transformative Language Arts Network;
- and at many other community organizations, bookstores, and schools.