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Short Fiction from the Other Ms. Munro: Family and Laughter
Munro’s stories were born five decades ago in a small English village where children were seen and not heard, fathers were wacky, neighbors were snoopy, and maiden aunts were beautifully crafted artifices. Her original stories, dolloped with characters reminiscent of those from her childhood, telling of domestic shenanigans and outings gone revealingly awry are written with meticulous timing. Rich in details about the frailty and strength of the human spirit, her stories resonate with the truth of what is means to be human.
“Jennifer Munro introduces us to the endearing yet unabashed characters of her working class English childhood, those folks who have helped make her the funny, salty, and wise storyteller she is. Before the book’s end, we get to know her as the adult child of an aging parent, and the intentional mother who uses story to instill compassion in her Chicago kids. This is a delightful read!” —Andy Offutt Irwin, humorist, storyteller, and recording artist “Jennifer Munro’s stories take us to her charming English childhood in a way that reminds us that we are all really in the same world. We find ourselves hiding in Jennifer’s stories while we are at the same time visiting another world through her English childhood.” —Donald Davis, storyteller and author of Cripple Joe “Brings us inside the mind of a delightful child, living in a quirky world that we are eager to explore, populated by fascinating and eccentric characters, as told with a fresh, witty, and authentic voice. This is exactly the magic that we hope for in a collection of growing-up stories!” —Doug Lipman, author of The Storytelling Coach |
Jennifer Munro, born in a small English village “where children were seen, but never heard,” resorted to stealthy observation to study the cadence of life in the family, neighborhood, church, and schoolyard. At an early age, Munro reports that she was “fascinated by the power of the individual voice.” Her adult years as a school teacher and a mother in Chicago, and later when she moved to Connecticut presages a midlife career as a professional storyteller. Munro has appeared as a featured teller at the National Storytelling Festival in historic Jonesborough, Tennessee, the Illinois Storytelling Festival, the Connecticut Storytelling Festival in New London, and the roving New England storytelling event, Sharing the Fire. Often an unobtrusive shopper at her local bookstore, R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison, CT, Munro is now a stealth observer in her own hometown, where she lives with her husband, Eric.
Portrait of the author by Paul Duda of StudioDuda 
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