Kerensa Jennings

KERENSA'S BACKGROUND Kerensa Jennings is a storyteller, strategist, writer, producer and professor. She is Trustee at Sir John Soane’s Museum, and Chair of the Board at the Centre for the Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST). Kerensa has worked in technology for many years, with a focus on impact, purpose, data and inclusion, trying to help make the world a better place. Her TV career took her all over the world, covering everything from geo-politics to palaeontology, and her time as Programme Editor of Breakfast with Frost coincided with the life-changing events of 9/11. The knowledge and experience she gained in psychology by qualifying and practising as an Executive Coach has only deepened her fascination with exploring the interplay between nature and nurture and with investigating whether evil is born or made – the question at the heart of SEAS OF SNOW. As a scholar at Oxford, her lifelong passion for poetry took flight. Kerensa lives in West London and is indebted to her former school teacher, Mrs Dany Adams, for believing in her and helping breathe life into her dreams. IN HER OWN WORDS... I’ve been writing stories and poems ever since I was a little girl. Although it took me a long time to get around to writing a book, I’m lucky enough to have spent many years in the media as a TV producer, writing television programmes. Most of the time viewers would have had no idea who I was, but my words have informed, educated and entertained millions over the years. I produced, directed, wrote for and worked with some of the most amazing people including Nelson Mandela, Sir David Frost (I was Programme Editor of Breakfast with Frost), Sir David Attenborough, Fiona Bruce, Sian Williams, James Nesbitt, George Alagiah and Rory Bremner. I moved away from programme making to strategy and became the BBC’s Head of Strategic Delivery where I designed and delivered strategies for the Corporation, including a significant digital strategy (BBC Make it Digital). I went on to work at Buckingham Palace for four years as CEO of a social enterprise - Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (idea.org.uk). These days I am Group Director of Data Platforms at BT. I’ve always used literature, and poetry in particular, for solace and escape. I happen to think literature is probably the best self-help on the planet! You can fly into other worlds and find ways through writing to make sense of life. SEAS of SNOW draws together some of my passions and fascinations in life. While I was at university, I studied the psychoanalysis of fairy tales and got very interested in archetypes and the way characters and stories of good and evil are portrayed. While leading the BBC News coverage of the Soham investigation, I had the opportunity to see first-hand a lot of evidence about the mind and motives of a psychopath. So in SEAS of SNOW, the protagonist Gracie uses poetry and playtime to escape the traumas and abuses of her life; the antagonist, her Uncle Joe, is a very bad man, a psychopath; and there is a subtext of fairy tale underlying the page-turning scenario which hopefully makes you want to read while half covering your eyes.