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| After graduation from Heritage, Jen attended Yale and earned a BA in Psychology. She did not give up her love of the game of soccer and played for the Yale team. Jen was a Division I All-America soccer player, as well as Ivy League Player of the Year in both 1992 and 1993. During her senior year, she got a job at the Yale medical school as a research assistant in the depression clinic. She continued in this role for about a year after graduation and, since then, has held various positions in the pharmaceutical industry including working as a monitor, performing QA audits, and managing clinical trials; she has managed asthma, rhinitis, and ADHD studies. Jen thinks the best part of her job is that fact that it’s allowed her to travel all over the US—so far she’s hit 45 of the states. Jen is married (since last Memorial Day weekend) and lives just outside of Philadelphia, which allows her to be close to family and the many opportunities for her work. Her husband, Heath, and she met while running in the park. Heath convinced her to train for a marathon; the two of them ran the 2004 Disney Marathon and then ran off to a future together. The two share interests in reading, travel and the Phillies. Jen has also coauthored two books that grew from a recent interest in the TV poker craze. As Jen tells it, “In October of 2004, poker was just starting to be featured on TV all the time and Ross Watson (Jen’s friend and coauthor) and I, along with three of my coworkers, decided that we needed to start playing poker. One obstacle was the fact that none of us had chips. That problem was easily solved, though; we just ordered some chips off of e-bay, and when they arrived, Ross and I decided to try to learn some chip tricks to impress everyone. (Note: they were never impressed!) It wasn’t all that easy, though. There were no books and only a few websites that really described how to perform the tricks. We kept at it, mastered a few tricks, and one day Ross said, ‘we should write the book.’ So, we randomly called a publisher of gambling books and told them about our idea. They said to send them a proposal (we had to ask what went into a proposal) and much much later (two publishers, an agent, two drafts, etc.), we finally got a book out.” Chip Tricks: Look Like a Poker Pro gives detailed instructions and photographs on how to “wow them” at the poker table. It does not take itself too seriously and is written from the point of view of the authors’ personal experience and shared sense of humor. |
 Their second book arose from Jen’s and Ross’s frustration when they finally started playing poker. They read a few instructional books and all the books said, “write down your results, keep a record, etc.” Anyway, it was obviously a hole in the market because there were no poker journals available, even though every instruction book said to keep one. (Since that time a few others have been published.) So, Jen and Ross wrote their second book proposal. This time, they knew how to write it. By that time they had an agent, and he shopped the proposal around for a few weeks before the two got an offer. Their poker journal is cleverly titled The Poker Journal. |