Profile

[last update: April 26, 2022]

Hi, I'm Jenett. I'm Jenett on here, and on various other online spaces. You can usually tell it's me because I'll link to something on gleewood.org as the web address. This is my personal online space (as opposed to my professional-self space.) I was also Jenett on LiveJournal (and previously Gwynyth.)

I have a locked post with additional background (to help you make sense of other things in my journal) you can read if you have access.

Basics

I was born in Boston, lived there through my college years, spent twelve years living in Minnesota, and moved to Maine for a job in 2011. In May 2015, I moved back to the Boston area for a new job, which remains amazingly awesome. My father was English and my mother grew up in the UK, and for a variety of reasons, I tend to use British spelling (but not always terminology) in casual writing. I'm in my mid-40s and live with one cat, Astra (of whom there are almost never photos because she is nearly entirely black and hard to photograph.)

Because my current job is instantly identifiable if I talk too much about the specifics, I don't do that here in public, but will say I'm a librarian working with a unique collection, in a situation that is mostly me as solo librarian plus archives staff, and that I do a mixture of everything - heavy on complex reference questions, some common FAQ type material, and collection development.

Previous library jobs have been at an independent school and then as the information technology librarian at a small public university campus in Maine. I'm glad to talk library stuff with many people, so if you've stumbled across this and have questions about the profession, or whatever else, feel free to ask.

I have multiple chronic medical diagnoses, all of which are individually well-managed, but that sometimes gang up on me. (From your point of view, this means that there are days I'm up for comment and complicated conversation, and days I'm really not.)

Religiously speaking, I am an initiate and priestess in a small religious witchcraft tradition founded in Minnesota in the late 1990s. Since I now live 1500 miles from the rest of the tradition, that means I'm currently in the process of building a small coven and other community again.

What you'll see on this journal

Most entries in my journal are locked by default (but there are some exceptions). I am generally fairly relaxed about adding people to my access list, but it helps if you leave a comment or make it easy for me to figure out why you might be interested in me.

Usual content runs to:

• General posts from me, about daily life stuff.
  
• Occasional analytical posts from me, usually about some aspect of research, technology, academia, libraryland, or something else related.
  
• Occasional analysis of specific books, music, or other creative stuff.

My roundup of links has some of my favourite posts, and can give you a sense of what my more detailed ones are like.

Projects and interests

I am writing and self-publishing romance novels (mostly 1920s Great Britain with magic!) as Celia Lake. I have a writing filter, and am generally glad to add people who are interested in periodic notes about writing progress (and also things like my own notes about sales and the business of writing.) If you're interested, drop me a note somewhere relevant and let me know.

On the religious side, I run Seeking, which is a site for people interested in Paganism and more specifically religious witchcraft. I'm also turning some of the Seeking material into ebooks.

I am generally fannish and amiable about hearing about your fannish interests, but (outside of Alternity) have done limited fanfic writing. You can find me over at jenett. I've written for Yuletide since 2011.

I've been hotel chair for several small conventions, and can talk your ear off about the importance of respecting corkage. (And I'm generally glad to geek about being hotel chair and what you might want to think about.)

Previous projects
I was one of the player-authors for Alternity: a alternate universe Harry Potter role-playing game/shared story that ran from 2007 to 2015 (yes, that's seven years). See more in the this post of links), and I was also our data goddess. While the project's over now, I still am happy to talk about it, or especially to geek about the wiki I built for it (with data entry help and comments from other player-authors!) which topped 7000 pages by the time we were done.

I also knit a rather massive blanket to go with Alternity, because two epic projects at the same time were apparently not enough. I haven't been knitting a lot recently, but it's an ongoing interest.

I was on the board of Twin Cities Pagan Pride from 2005 until I moved in 2011, and helped found (and help when I can) Paganicon, a weekend-long Pagan hotel-based convention in March just outside Minneapolis.


Fanfic related policies
If you're interested in doing something (podfic, remixes, etc.) with my fanfic, I am likely to be delighted, but please check first. (Since most my AO3 writing is for exchanges, there may be something specific you'd want to know first about the original prompt or context.)

I'm also delighted to talk about options for sharing my Seeking material or other Pagan or other commentary elsewhere, but again, please double check first. (In this case, it's often so I can give you a handy 'if you want more about this, try here..." link to share.)

Fanfic and my authorial life
I am a fanfic writer! I approve of it existing. People writing fanfic of my stuff would be delightful! However, for all the usual legal and other reasons, please don't wave it in my face and make me have to know about it. That gets messy.

(I am, however, glad to be asked if something is canonical or going to be, if I've got a reference handy for the thing I said about portals, etc.)

Fan art and other related things are lovely and please do share them with me if you'd like. I would be delighted to share fan art or other stuff that isn't fanfic with readers via my mailing list or authorial blog if you're okay with that.