Who am I? Good question. Depending on the hour, I am a woman, a grown-up girl, a mother, a daughter, a dual citizen, a dreamer, a friend, an entrepreneur, a writer, a healing professional, and many others. Below is a summary of the experiences and skills relevant to the moment.
Jen Sonstein Maidenberg, M.A. is a writer, researcher, and dreamworker. She received a Master of Arts degree in 2015 from the Shaindy Rudoff Creative Writing Program at Bar-Ilan University. Her full professional bio may be found on LinkedIn.
Most recently, Jen worked as a content marketing executive in tech in both Israel and the U.S. Previously, she was a journalist and a children’s book club editor. She also founded, in 2007, Mindful Living NJ, a consulting company supporting holistic health and wellness practitioners with marketing, communications, and event planning.
An early blogger, in the late 90s, Jen wrote a weekly column about Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the site ScoopMe, and at the height of the Mommy Blog scene in the late 2000s, wrote searingly honest hot takes on health as “The Wellness Bitch.”
Currently, Jen is a student of Rodger Kamenetz, learning how to use Natural Dreamwork as a means of self-knowledge and healing.
Writer
As a freelance journalist, Jen has reported for multiple news outlets — including The Times of Israel and the Arizona Jewish Post — covering books, literature, healing therapies, science, technology, psychic phenomena, community activism, and cultural events.
While living in the Northern Israel kibbutz community of Hannaton from 2010-2017, Jen studied creative nonfiction and poetry at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv.
Jen’s essays and poems have been featured in Medium’s Human Parts, Zibby Owens’ Moms Don’t Have Time to Write, Dr. Richard Cytowic’s column for Psychology Today, Proximity, Split Lip, Queen Mob’s Tea House, District Lit, and Silver Birch Press. In 2015, she was named a finalist for the Ruminate Magazine Spiritual Nonfiction Prize.
Jen’s lyric essay memoir (the yet-to-be-published ‘Til I Am) has been named a finalist three times for the Autumn House Press full-length book contest (2016, 2017, & 2020). Two personal essays about her adjustment to life in Israel were included in the 2017 published anthology, Becoming Israeli. As an editor of Scholastic Book Clubs, she wrote three original activity books for elementary-age children.
Researcher
Jen is currently researching dreams, Jewish mysticism, memory, music, precognition, time travel, synchronicity, consciousness, and the afterlife. To learn more or support this research, please check out her Patreon page. Essays on these topics may be found on the home page and at jenmaidenberg.medium.com.
Dreamworker
Online and in person, Jen guides individuals interested in remembering, exploring, understanding, and excavating their dreams.
Jen also is currently a student of Natural Dreamwork, working her own dreams using this empirical approach, with the hopes of training and becoming certified in this method.
Other related areas of study and practice include watercolor painting, Jewish chanting, Torah study (particularly through the lens of Kabbalah), sacred geometry, and Chinese medicine.