bio
Jennifer Wynne Webber is a writer based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Her first novel, DEFYING GRAVITY, released in 2000 by Coteau Books, takes readers on a spiritual and emotional journey through the Canadian Rockies. It received enthusiastic reviews across Canada and was nominated for three Saskatchewan Book Awards, including Book of the Year.
Her first play, BESIDE MYSELF, was published by Scirocco Drama in 2001. A moving look at life, death, and the mysteries of light aboard a small ship in a Vancouver marina, it premiered as an Actor's Equity Co-op in January 2000, with the support of 25th Street Theatre, before going on to launch the 2000-2001 season at Saskatchewan's Dancing Sky Theatre. It was later produced at Trinity Western University in Langley, B.C.
WHISTLING AT THE NORTHERN LIGHTS, one of her newest plays, was workshopped at the Spring Festival of New Plays in 2006. An earlier version of the script was shortlisted for the On the Verge 05 festival as well as for Nightwood Theatre's Groundswell Festival of New Work by Women. It was also previously workshopped under the title, MEMENTO MORI, at the University of Alberta in January - February 2004 with director Brenda Finley.
PEACHES AND CREAM, another new play in progress, was featured at the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre Spring Festival of New Plays in May 2005 where it received a workshop and staged public reading.
Jennifer Wynne Webber &
Bruce Dinsmore (Real Estate, Centaur Theatre, 2005)
Also an actor with many years of professional
theatre experience behind her, Jennifer's acting credits include playing Emma
in REAL ESTATE at Centaur Theatre, Montreal (Oct. - Dec., 2005),
Valerie in THE
WEIR at the Arts Club Theatre in Vancouver (Oct. 17-Nov. 16, 2002) in
a cast featuring Henry Woolf with Susan Williamson directing. She played Joan
McCusker in GOLD ON ICE by Geoffrey Ursell in the summer of 2003 and
also appeared as a neurosurgeon in an episode of the TV medical drama, BODY
AND SOUL. For Saskatoon's
Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival,
she has played Gertrude in HAMLET, Dol Common in Ben Jonson's
THE ALCHEMIST, Mistress
Page in MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, and
Jacquenetta
& Katherine in LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST.
Jennifer is now focusing her efforts on several new writing projects (fiction
and drama) in various stages of completion. She is also a part-time graduate
student in the University of British Columbia's M.F.A. web-based distance
program in Creative Writing.
Born in Ottawa, Jennifer spent her early childhood in Calgary and Montreal, before moving to Saskatoon at the age of nine. She graduated from the University of Saskatchewan with a B.A. Honours in History before heading into a career in journalism. For more than a dozen years, Jennifer worked as a journalist for CBC Television and Radio in Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon, specializing in arts journalism. She currently works part-time with the University of Saskatchewan and recently produced a series of television features on University of Saskatchewan researchers. Jennifer is an active member of the Playwrights Guild of Canada's, having spent several years on its National Council in addition to serving as Vice-President of the board of Playwrights Canada Press. Jennifer is married to abstract painter Jonathan Forrest.