Jennifer L Shelton

While giving the “About FemCentral” page a long overdue update, I realized that I did not have an “About Me” page on the website. I put the original “about” pages up before I launched the site in January 2010, and at that time, I was not sharing anything about my personal life. No personal blogs. I had not even admitted to anyone that I was an astrologer!

But, I slowly started to reveal who I was when I was asked to be a regular blogger for Owning Pink. For a while, I put personal stuff on that site but left it out of this one, even though this website is JenniferLShelton.com!  About a year ago, I started to blog more on my own site, and now, well, you can learn a lot about me most every week!  I’ve been slowly, but steadily, evolving with FemCentral.

Some basics.

• I was born in 1970 (no need to keep it a secret)

• I’m from a small town in Kentucky and was raised as a Southern Baptist. While I no longer am a fundamentalist, I was until my early 20s.

• I am an introvert and my YouTube video on the subject is surprisingly popular. (Myers-Brigg INFJ. Sometimes INTJ. Depends on the day.)

• I am an astrologer, which was hard for me to accept at first. I did not seek out astrology.  I quite accidentally discovered a natural talent for it a few years ago. I love it. However, many fundamentalists believe astrology is “of the devil.” Even though I left behind the Southern Baptist upbringing 20 years ago, some knee jerk fear remains.  You can learn more about this by reading my post, “Claiming Your True Career.”

• I have an Aquarius Sun (conjunct Venus), a Capricorn Moon (conjunct Mercury), and Scorpio Ascendant. My North Node is Pisces in the fourth house.

• I went to Vanderbilt University for undergrad, where I majored in Political Science and Russian. (It was the 80s.) I spent a full semester studying in the Soviet Union.

• I went to UNC Chapel Hill for graduate school, where I received a MA in Russian Literature and completed all my coursework for the PhD. My area of focus was “literature of atrocity,” focusing on the ways in which concentration camp survivors used literature to testify about their personal experiences.

• I got married in 1995, after dating the same person for 4.5 years. I got divorced in 2004.

• I had a son in 2001, and he’s the joy of my life.

• I am a writer. Something else that has taken me a long time to accept. Read, “Jennifer Shelton’s Click.”

• I started FemCentral in January, 2010, after being laid off as the Manager of Education and Outreach for a research institute at UNC Chapel Hill.

• I am researching the life of Lucy Burns, one of the American suffragists directly responsible for the passage of the 19^th amendment, giving women the right to vote. I was struck by the story of Lucy Burns when I read about how many times she was imprisoned and force fed. I had no idea that the American suffragists were tortured. When I could find almost nothing about Ms. Burns, I decided to write a book about her myself. I spend three days a week in the library, reviewing microfilm. Fortunately, someone preserved the letters and writings of the suffragists, although precious few have written about them.

• I currently work as the webmaster, editor and main writer for FemCentral. I also work as an astrologer and teach online, undergraduate course in global cultures for Franklin University, which I’ve been doing since 2004.

I have a tendency to self-sabotage by “playing it safe.” This website and my book project scare the hell out of me. But, my “safe” choices in the past have proven to be risky (as evidenced by my divorce and layoff), so I’m doing something different and embracing the risk! Read more at “What’s your favorite form of self-sabotage?”

For more about the mission of FemCentral, please read the website, “About” page.

Thanks you for stopping by, and I hope to get to know you better as well!