Jennifer Lee Noonan was born in Austin, Texas, where she embraced writing at a young age as part of a larger need to perform, entertain, and generally be paid attention to. Most of her early work consisted of vaudeville-style shows with her friends, mockumentaries with her friends’ parents’ video cameras, and short horror stories which she imagined were in the style of Stephen King and Michael Crichton. (They were not.)

 

Shortly after her 21st birthday, she graduated from the University of Texas with two Bachelor’s degrees: the first in Radio-Television-Film, and the second in Plan II Honors, a bizarrely-named but distinguished liberal arts program promising “an Ivy League education for kids who can’t afford an Ivy League school.” At that point, her somewhat manic work history (starting at Domino’s Pizza at the age of 15, and overlapping to various degrees with a café, a music studio, a telemarketing agency, a construction company, and the technical support division of a pawn shop franchise) finally condensed into a single full-time position as a video game sound designer. Jennifer spent the next five years earning credits on titles like Turok: Evolution, All-Star Baseball, and Area 51. Several games during this time also featured her voice acting talents, a skill she fell back on for occasional income when it came time to leave the workforce and start a family.

 

Life then took a sharp left turn, as both of her young children were diagnosed with autism before the age of three. 2009 through 2014 was simultaneously traumatic and edifying, and Jennifer eventually distilled the experience into the gut-wrenching and critically acclaimed memoir No Map to This Country. The act of writing sustained her through these years, and once the book was finished, she realized there was no going back to the days of carefree writing for no one in particular.

 

In 2016, Jennifer partnered with legendary video game designer Sid Meier to write the aptly-titled Sid Meier’s Memoir!, which hit bookstore shelves in September 2020 and continues to be a fan favorite. In late 2020, she also won a Sidney Award from the New York Times for her Damn Interesting article "Dupes and Duplicity."

 

She has been married to her husband Andrew since 2003, and her latest project is currently in development.