Jennie Lay

Background

About Jennie Lay

Jennie Lay is a freelance writer and editor who writes about energy, land use, the environment, art, culture, mountain life and far-flung travel adventures. Her work appears in High Country News, The Los Angeles Times, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Scuba Diving, Yoga Journal, Ski Magazine, Wilderness, 5280, Steamboat Magazine and other publications. She is the former Editor in Chief of Steamboat Magazine and remains a contributing editor at that beautiful regional magazine. In 2023 she interviewed Fran Lebowitz live on stage during a featured event of the Strings Music Festival.Jennie is also festival director of Literary Sojourn, Bud Werner Library’s nationally renowned festival ofauthors in Steamboat Springs, Colo. In addition, she curates the author, cultural and documentary film programming at the public library, where she has interviewed writers including Russell Banks, Anne Enright, Mary Roach, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ted Conover and Nancy Pearl, and hosted guests ranging from Tibetan monks to live wolves, public lands hero Terry Tempest Williams, trail goddess Cheryl Strayed and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe.Jennie earned a B.A. in political science from the University of California Berkeley and amaster’s in journalism, plus a graduate interdisciplinary certificate in environmental policy, from theUniversity of Colorado Boulder. Before becoming a journalist, she clocked in as a land trust grant writer,radio DJ, concierge, camp counselor, and a strange array of seasonal jobs that allowed her all theadvantages of living in a ski town and harboring a chronic travel bug. Jennie’s passion for adventure ismatched by her deep sense of awe for wild landscapes, and she’s pretty sure that nothing beats a goodstory that weaves it all together.