Jennifer Nightingale is the author of the Pacific Northwest coming of age novel Alberta & the Spark. Jennifer Nightingale presents an unforgettable character, 13-year-old Alberta Evans, whose love of nature is as boundless as her belief in the goodness of all people. Set in a Pacific Northwest oyster town in the 1970s, Alberta struggles with adolescence and finds courage through her unique friendship with 15-year-old Felix, a kindred spirit who approaches the natural world as a scientist, while she reveres it with magical wonder. Together, they confront bullies, racism ,and disorienting family changes. They persevere and help bring their fractured coastal community together.
Jennifer has been writing stories and poems before she could, in fact, write. She grew up in Seattle and was active in the Seattle Welsh Community where she was encouraged to write and read her poetry in Seattle and Vancouver BC. She was honored to have Welsh Poet, Aled Lewis Evans, translate her piece “Where the Heart Once Stood” into the Welsh Language. This piece was read in both languages in towns and villages in Wales and other places in the UK where people experienced loss of a community gathering place. Jennifer’s connection to community, place and the natural world informs all of her writing.
Since moving to Astoria in 2015, Jennifer has been active in Ric’s Poetry Open Mic and has published and read in multiple local anthologies, Including Rain Magazine, the North Coast Squid, The Salal Review and also in Nehalem’s Trash Bash and Cannon Beach Library’s – “Writers Read’. The community of artists, storytellers and poets in the towns and villages along the Lower Columbia River and North Coast of Oregon keeps her buoyant and inspired.
She is working on a collaboration with McMinnville Oregon artist, John Stromme called ‘Dreaming in Color’ and hopes to publish a poetry collection called “Between the River & the Sea’ in 2024.
Jennifer lives with her husband Holt and spotted dog, Mickey in a little house in Astoria Oregon overlooking Youngs Bay. She has a son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter in Seattle which she yearns to visit more often than she can!
