Jen Rubin leads storytelling workshops around the state and produced The Moth StorySlam in Madison from 2016 through 2024. Her work is founded in the belief that stories are an important way we connect as humans. She leads a storytelling project with Odyssey Beyond Bars and is on the Inside & Out National Advisory Committee. She was the Executive Producer of Love Wisconsin, a statewide digital storytelling project produced by Wisconsin Humanities, where she also co-produced Humanity Unlocked, a series from Human Powered  about the power of the humanities in Wisconsin prisons. Her books include We Are Staying: Eighty Years in the Life of a Family, a Store, and a Neighborhood and the Great Midwest Bagel Quest (forthcoming). Follow her quest on Substack: https://rubinjen.substack.com/

Jessica is Director of Letters and Communications for the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and editor of Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine. She worked for Wisconsin Humanities for nearly 25 years and was Creative Producer of Human Powered podcast for the first three seasons. She puts her energy into community projects that help us imagine a future in which we value our histories and evolve with resiliency and creativity. She is the co-founder of Field to Frock with Midwest Linen Revival — events to bring people together to imagine the future of farming, fashion, and flax. She writes non-fiction essays on literature, art, food, and travel to liberate the spirit and light up the brain for her Substack called Wanderlife.