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About Me — Jennifer Chante
Write, Poet, frequently awed by life
I was born in Essex, England, in 1986.
One of my earliest memories is of watching the news and seeing the Berlin wall being knocked down by people with sledgehammers. This image has stuck with me throughout my life, becoming something of a cornerstone of my psyche.
I’ve been writing since my teens. Expressing myself in writing has always been easier for me than speaking. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2019.
More recently, I’ve studied writing as a mature student at the University of Essex, earning a BA in Creative Writing, as well as an MA in Wild Writing: Literature, Landscape and the Environment. In 2024, I self-published the creative part of my MA dissertation — a collection of short personal essays and poems, inspired and informed by the eroding coast near my home, titled Inundation.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve struggled with health issues (autistic burnout and/or suspected Long Covid), which have dampened my lifelong joy of reading and writing. Migraines and brain fog have made it hard to string even a simple sentence together at times! Yet, for the first time in my life, I’m learning how to pace myself, and as a result the creative spark is tentatively returning. I’m enjoying…