Jen Soriano

Jen Soriano (she/they) is a Filipinx-American writer, performer, and movement strategist with more than 20 years of experience working at the intersection of grassroots organizing, strategic communications, and art-driven social change. Jen’s essays have received the International Literary Award in Nonfiction, the Fugue Prose Prize, and fellowships from Hugo House, Vermont Studio Center, Artist Trust, and the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat.

Jen is author of the chapbook “Making the Tongue Dry” and co-editor of Closer to Liberation: A Pina/xy Activist Anthology. Their first full-length book, Nervous, an essay collection on historical trauma and the neuroscience of healing, is now available through Amistad/HarperCollins. They write about mental health, colonization, race and gender, history and science, and social justice issues at large, to shine light on marginalized stories and to share radical worldviews through an artistic lens.

Jen also participates in multidisciplinary performances as a singer, songwriter, and performance poet. From 2000-2010, they were a part of the Filipinx hip hop, soul, folk, and reggae band Diskarte Namin and was a founding member of Pinay performance crew The Rhapsodistas. They are a three-time participant in KulArts’ POMO festival and are part of the 2023 Seattle Center performance of Naomi Bragin and Milvia Pacheco’s Umalalengua Okan.

Originally from a landlocked area of southwest Chicagoland, Jen now lives with her partner, human kid, and water dog on unceded Duwamish territory, Seattle, near the Salish Sea. She wants whatever you’re eating right now, and would love to connect on Instagram.