Tina L. Jens’ novel, The Blues Ain't Nothin': Tales of the Lonesome Blues Pub, won the National Federation of Press Women Best Novel award and was a Final Nominee for the Horror Writers and International Horror Guild awards. She’s had more than 70 fantasy, mystery, horror, and comedic short stories published, in addition to more than a dozen poems and numerous essays and news articles. She's had one short play (co-written with John Weagly) produced at the Panoply Arts Festival, and three others chosen for table readings at Dandelion Theatre's Make Ready series. She adapted a portion of her novel and performs it with Grammy-award winning blues musician Liz Mandeville.
Her most recent publications include her third appearance in HairTrigger2.0, with a creative nonfiction piece called “Just a Song and Dance Man” about her father after his stroke, which appears in the Summer 2020 issue. Other recent publications include the bio-poem “Lady Ella, She Don’t” in Ella @ 100; and a novelette called “The Patchwork Woman,” a retelling of the Bride of Frankenstein story, forthcoming in the anthology Gaslight Ghouls.
She served as the senior editor for Twilight Tales small press for 10 years. For a decade, she taught the fantasy writing courses at Columbia College. Jens received the 2017 Rubin Family Fellowship artist residency at Ragdale Foundation. She runs the monthly Gumbo Fiction Salon reading series (now done virtually, via Zoom). She lives in Chicago, IL with her husband and guinea pig.
HairTrigger2.0 Website: www.hairtrigger.colum.edu