About Jaclyn

Called "the hardest-working woman in feminism" by Michelle Tea, Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer and activist. Her poems and nonfiction can be found in numerous publications, including PW.org, PoetsAgainstTheWar.org (where her poem "State of the Union" was selected as a Poem of the Day), in the Underwood Review, and in the Lambda Award nominated anthology Pinned Down By Pronouns.  Her opinion column, "Where Your Mouth Is," was a popular monthly feature in Sojourner: The Women's Forum until the magazine's untimely demise in October 2002, and she now produces a biweekly podcast by the same name, which can be heard on AlterNet. Friedman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College and has received a 2001 Cambridge Poetry Award, a 2004 Somerville Arts Council Artist Grant, and a recent fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center.  She is a contributing writer for PopPolitics.com.

Friedman is a dynamic and powerful performer who has shared the stage with the likes of Olga Broumas, Letta Neely, Saul Williams, and the legendary spoken-word troupe Sister Spit. She also starred for several years in The Yellow Dress, a touring one-woman play about dating violence. Friedman teaches workshops on Performance Skills for Writers and Using Writing and Theater to Break Through Taboo, through which she works with students of all ages in community groups and on college campuses.

In her work as the Program Director for the Center for New Words (CNW, a non-profit organization creating spaces and places where women's words matter), she programs and produces a 50 plus event-per-year series of author disucssions, as well as writing workshops, open mics, political discussions, music concerts, book groups and special events.  She is Co-Founder and Co-Chair of WAM!, CNW's conference on Women and the Media.  Before coming to CNW, Friedman worked as Program Director of the LiveSafe Foundation, an organization dedicated to teaching self-defense, de-escalation and safety skills in communities with high rates of violence.

In her spare time, Friedman plots for world domination through truth and secretly watches reality television.  Her favorite lipstick color is Wicked.