BIOGRAPHY:

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (who mostly goes by Jen) was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She has been, in turn, a competitive cheerleader, a volleyball player, a dancer, a debutante, a primate cognition researcher, a teen model, a comic book geek, and a lemur aficionado. She's been writing for as long as she can remember, finished her first full book (which she now refers to as a "practice book" and which none of you will ever see) when she was still in high school, and then wrote Golden the summer after her freshman year in college, when she was nineteen.

Jen graduated high school in 2002, and from Yale University with a degree in cognitive science (the study of the brain and thought) in May of 2006. She'll be spending the 2006-2007 school year abroad, doing autism research at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Author photograph © Marsha Barnes

FAVORITES:

Television Show: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Book: Matilda by Roald Dahl

Movies: Clueless; X-Men 2

Songs: Feels Like Home by Chantal Kreviazuk; You and I Both by Jason Mraz

Foods: Guacamole; cotton candy

Candy: Those teeny tiny jawbreaker things that most candy stores don't have. So. Good.

Ice Cream: Dulce de leche; butter pecan with marshmallow topping

Color: Hot pink

Name: Rowan

Number: 72