Jenna R. London, founder of Catalpa Dreams, was raised in northeastern Pennsylvania.  She developed a passion for animals early on and spent much of her childhood and adolescent years riding and caring for horses. Forever in awe of the natural world, Jenna remembers running as a young child from the wind that blew across the yard of her childhood home. While she doesn't remember when she stopped running from the wind, she realizes now that her deep connection to the natural world and its many wonders has provided the underpinnings for her own ongoing search for meaning in life's everyday occurrences. She takes comfort in the wind's unpredictability.

London received her Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies from the University of Vermont in 2002, after which she embarked on her "bumming around productively" period. During the next six years, London worked primarily as an outdoor educator, holding seasonal field jobs with titles like "prairie dog counter" and "rattlesnake-cage maker." Her wanderlust took her far and wide; she has traveled across the United States, as well as to Australia, Africa, South America, and Mexico. Eventually she took a job as a wetland biologist and "settled down," momentarily, in Southeastern Massachusetts. 

London's passion for creative writing revealed itself over the course of the many travels of her early and mid-twenties. During her two-year stint in Missoula, Montana, she felt compelled to express some of the wonder that she had experienced outdoors and began to publish stories of her adventures in the wild; writing has remained a constant thread in her life since. After the birth of her first child in 2013, London decided to leave her profession as an environmental consultant in order to pursue her passion of creative writing. In January 2017, she received her MFA in Creative Writing, and her recent work has been published in Wildflower Muse and Assay.

London prides herself on approaching both her life and her writing with humor, determination, and the desire to grow and evolve as an individual. She lives and writes with her family and two dogs in upstate New York. Winter is her favorite season.