Meet Jen Waters

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jen Waters. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jen below.

Hi Jen , appreciate you sitting with us today. Maybe we can start with a topic that we care deeply about because it’s something we’ve found really sets folks apart and can make all the difference in whether someone reaches their goals. Self discipline seems to have an outsized impact on how someone’s life plays out and so we’d love to hear about how you developed yours?

I swam as part of the Hershey Aquatic Club in the summers from the second grade through the twelfth grade, and I also swam on the Hershey High School Swimming and Diving Team. So, I always love watching swimming in the Olympics each year and admire swimmers such as Michael Phelps, Caeleb Dressel, and Katie Ledecky. A lot of the time, when I have a problem to solve, I think about how an Olympic athlete would solve it. They would make a training plan and stick to it, and then overcome the obstacle. My favorite stroke is breaststroke. I liked to swim the 50 M breaststroke. I liked 50 M freestyle and 50 M butterfly, too. I liked the Individual Medley and Relay Races, but I wasn’t as fond of the 500 M Freestyle because it was so long. My least favorite was backstroke. I was always worried that I was going to hit my head on the wall during the backstroke flip turn, if I miscounted my strokes to the wall with the flags. I also found the backstroke starts on the blocks difficult. However, I once came in second in breaststroke in a meet where the winner went to participate in the Olympics. So, I think later in life my discipline is largely due to my years on the swim team where we swam for about three hours every summer morning whether we felt like it or not. We learned stroke technique, starts, finishes, underwater pulls, turns, and more. If the water was freezing cold, then I turned blue. If it rained, we swam in the outdoor pool anyhow in the summer rain. Only lightning and thunder cancelled practice. Saturday mornings were dedicated to swim meets. Swim in such a way as to get the prize! During high school swim season, we swam every day after school, even if we had a big test the next day. After the wet workout, we did the dry workout on the pool deck. Back and forth and back and forth in the pool for the exact minutes allotted for us to be in the pool. You couldn’t be late, and you were even expected to swim most days if you were sick, unless you were going to sit on the pool bench with a box of tissues for practice instead. I remember the most difficult exercise was sculling in the upper pool deep end with only your forearms without kicking, and you had to position yourself upright. In high school and college, because of my love of swimming, I became a lifeguard at the Cocoa Avenue Plaza and The Hotel Hershey. Thankfully, I never had to save anyone from drowning in the swimming pool, but I did save a boy from choking on snacks in the Whole Foods in Arlington, Virginia, once where I used the same technique to relieve his choking as used in lifeguarding. I also played tennis on the Hershey High School Girls Tennis Team, and I still love to play when I get a chance.

Then, later when I worked in print journalism in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. I applied the same discipline to writing. Journalism helped me to develop strong writing skills, so I never get writer’s block. We had to write every day, whether we felt like it or not. So, you come up with techniques to generate ideas. Now I am able to use a lot of those techniques when I brainstorm song titles and fiction story ideas. For instance, when I wanted new titles for a batch of songs that I am writing on the theme of roses, I researched the books in the gardening section of the Barnes & Noble.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Through Pen Jen Songs, I’ve released my singer/ songwriter collections WHIMSY, which includes the John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize Winner “Yellow Roses,” WHIMSY FOR ONE, WHIMSY FOR TWO, PURITY, SIMPLICITY, FATE, and HOLIDAY MUCHNESS on Apple Music and other streaming services. I also released children’s music/spoken word collections, including WONDERLAND, WINTER WONDERLAND, IMPOSSIBLE THINGS, CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER, ENTIRELY BONKERS, THE GREAT PUZZLE, HANDWRITTEN, and HOOPS TIME. Pen Jen’s Inkwell Podcast features my spoken word stories as well. At the beginning of each episode, I talk about the inspiration for my original stories that I wrote and performed. I’m hoping that my stories on Pen Jen’s Inkwell Podcast can be adapted for the stage and screen, possibly a children’s TV show can be developed from the podcast. Pen Jen’s Inkwell blog has more original stories, poems, and song lyrics on it.

In the fall, I plan on releasing a 14-song collection called SHELTER. I wrote all the songs by myself, and it is produced by Eric Baines, who also plays the bass for CHICAGO THE BAND. What I love about CHICAGO is that they have such high musicianship. They are true musicians, and people like that are rare these days. Also, their horn section is outrageous! On SHELTER, you will hear my love for certain artists come through my songwriting like with Billy Joel in “All of My Life,” Amy Grant in “Act of Faith,” Johnny Cash in “She Won’t Sit Among the Shadows,” Sting in “Shelter,” and Bonnie Raitt in “Making Up for Lost Time.” I tried to write songs that are timeless as standards. I wrote “Two Sides of the Same Coin” to bring the country together from its current political divisions. I also wrote the song “Peace” the week before Israel was invaded on October 7, 2023. I think my favorite song of the batch is “Roses Were Wild,” which says, “I loved you when roses were wild. I loved you when I was a child.” Apart from SHELTER, I am working on writing a new collection of songs about roses. One of the songs is called “Thorns,” where I received inspiration from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 99, which says: “The roses fearfully on thorns did stand.” I rhymed it with: “Beauty and pain grow on the same hand.”

I also am working on A CHRISTMAS RABBIT HOLE release for the holiday season, which includes a few original songs that I wrote, including “Stardust Noel,” “Christmas Gingerbread Man,” “The Christmas Cactus,” “Kiss Me Beneath the Mistletoe,” “Mr. Santa’s Song.” I thought the release title continued the ALICE IN WONDERLAND theme that I used with my children’s music, and I tried to write magical Christmas songs that everyone could enjoy.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

First, I tried to read everything. One of my minors at Syracuse University was English and Textual Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. My other minor was Music Industry in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, but my English minor has helped me want to look past the words on the page to the meaning of the text. This is also true when watching films. Growing up, I was always reading something new and trying to learn something. I spent hours in the Hershey Public Library. So, because I read everything, then I became a great writer. My Magazine Journalism major at the Newhouse School, which was sort of like creative writing, was dubbed “the HARRY POTTER” major by my advisor Professor Bill Glavin. Professor Glavin has now passed away, but he was a great mentor and was always encouraging of my work. He nominated me as a S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Scholar and for the Henry J. Wolff Prize. Second, I would always research things for myself. I would not depend on other people’s opinions. I would try to learn from people who are different than I am and ask questions. Even though I write contemporary music, I like to listen to classical music, opera, jazz, and attend the ballet. Third, I tried to be skeptical. In journalism, I never took anything at face value. I once asked Dr. Francis Collins, who is the former director of the National Institutes of Health, who believed in theistic evolution, if he had an explanation for when the human soul started. He didn’t have a clear answer, so at least I made him think again.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When I feel overwhelmed, I try to think about someone who overcame a problem that I might currently be having. I always admired Princess Diana. I thought she had such elegance and grace, even when she was being criticized and harshly judged by people. She had so much compassion and empathy for AIDS patients and people who were suffering. She also courageously walked through land mines to stand up to oppressive people. I hope I can have as much grace and courage as she had when she dealt with difficult situations. She also had a fantastic wardrobe and witty responses to naysayers. If Princess Diana was still alive, I would have loved to have lunch with her and get a lot of advice, but her life still speaks even though she has passed away.

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Photography by Alan Weissman

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