Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenna O’malley. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jenna, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

As a former high school English teacher, I think the current state of education in the United States experiences stakeholders in the system leaving many creative and/or Neurodivergent minds craving more than what is presented to them. I used to work with some of West Virginia’s most at-risk graduating populations over the last fifteen years. Juniors and seniors on the brink of going into a world not built by them and not ready to give them the supports they need to thrive in their lives. Many students want to work in conditions that allow them to be creative. What some schools consider to be best practices sets students up to feel either starved of opportunities to express themselves safely and productively or quieted into not having those opportunities at all. When I taught creative writing courses at these schools, the first grading period–an entire quarter of the year–was often spent convincing new students that it is safe to write without fear. Writing is a tool that can be an empowering vehicle for personal change. Sharing that story has a ripple effect many students have lost over time. After all, social media posts go viral, or creators of such do, for making a fire that calls people to sit around it with them for a long time. Why can’t teenagers be given the tools and insight to do that for themselves, instead of ways that make them fit a standard rarely serving more than educational theory and curriculum purchasing?

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Jenna O’Malley, your Soul Writer, and I write sci-fi/fantasy with dashes of romance and nerdy references. The Merna Annals is my first series in this penname, but books and teaching about them or editing them have been part of my life for well over half of the 30-some years I’ve been alive. Some high school teachers are seen working their old waitressing jobs from college. Instead of going that angle, I took on editing tasks from trad publishers. For example, someone went on maternity leave early, or they were in a non-work related situation that took them away unplanned—and I would step in. I learned so much from so many people as I was afforded the chance to work with various authors and genres through these companies. When 2020 sent so many teachers and students crash landing into virtual spaces, I stayed in virtual schools until I could publish enough books and gain enough soul bards in my coaching and editing clients to leave that realm and transition into working on books that tell healing stories full time. That kind of power writing has is what drove me to teach in the first place. Now, I bring those skills to authors facing similar blocks in their books and business.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Though I come from a family of hard workers, I understand what it means to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches non-stop for three meals a day. And not by choice. My parents could not impart much in the way of finances to their children, but what they did teach my four older brothers and me was resilience, and how to persist through life’s challenges. To that end, let me emphasize our career choices: two truckers, one vet tech, one law enforcement officer, one teacher turned writer. All of us know what it means to put in a hard 14-hour-or-longer workday. All of us have careers that make us think both long-term and short-term. The micro-decisions I made in a classroom tallied some days in the thousands, depending on how many students with whom I worked needed me to accommodate and modify my teaching for their IEP and 504 needs—even if they themselves did not have that paperwork. It goes beyond finding the strength to get up in the morning and finding the strength to power through to sleep at night. All of us had our passions tested again and again. As my eldest brother George used to say about trucking, he loved it for the adventure. I, too, find that looking for what calls me to do what I do by putting down the miles on my keyboard each day is what tests my resilience to keep showing up. That is half of the battle. Pair consistency with reflective re-evaluation periods, and you have a well-oiled system in the making to climb all the mountains you could want.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I’m unschooling a lot of what made me a good educator from my system. For example, I thought that I could only ever function as a morning person. Mind you, when March 2020 happened, I was waking up at 400 am or 430 am to make my one-way, one-hour-and-change commute to go teach. I would leave home by about 530 am, or else, I would not make it to homeroom on time with traffic jam risks. Yes, that means I would arrive home by about 530 pm to do dinner, chores, and go work in editing and tutoring part time for a few hours before going to bed. I had to unlearn filling my entire day with what only served other people. Teachers are taught to be the guide on the side and not the sage on stage, as I heard so often between 2011 to present in any number of pedagogical classes on education. I cannot do either of those options, if I first do not do it for myself. Yes, I think teachers are wrongly taught to pour from their cups and into other cups until they break. I cannot create from a broken and dried out husk of who I am longing to be. I took six months of hermit mode this year to really iron out those kinks. It was worth the time and effort. I feel I am of better service to my clients and readers because of that self-investment.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jennathesoulwriter.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jennathesoulwriteromalley
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennathesoulwriteromalley
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/jennathesoulwriter
• Other: https://jennathesoulwriter.substack.com/
  https://linktr.ee/jennathesoulwriter
  https://tiktok.com/@the.merna.annals

Image Credits

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