The Very Short Bio
Gina Denny is a writer, homeschooler, and erstwhile music teacher. She hosts the Pineapple P. Podcast, a bi-weekly podcast about the writing on How I Met Your Mother and is a contributing editor to In Omnia Paratus, an online magazine analyzing Gilmore Girls. Along with weekly essays on Medium about parenting and education topics, she writes children's non-fiction for Kiwi Crate and lives near Phoenix, Arizona with her family.
The Short Bio
Gina Denny is a writer, homeschooler, and erstwhile music teacher who writes about parenting and education issues. Along with Darci Cole, she hosts the Pineapple P. Podcast, a bi-weekly podcast in which they recap How I Met Your Mother episodes and discuss writing strategies and tips found in the show. She is a contributing editor, alongside Annette Lyon, to In Omnia Paratus, an online magazine dedicated to critiquing and analyzing Gilmore Girls. Along with her popular weekly essays on parenting and education topics, she writes children's non-fiction for Kiwi Crate, the educational monthly subscription box. She also writes science fiction and fantasy for fun and lives near Phoenix, Arizona with her family.
The Long Bio
I've lived in the Phoenix, Arizona area almost my entire life, with brief stints in Dallas, TX and Orlando, FL (Disneyworld!). I majored in Music Education for two years, but finished with a degree in Business and Human Resources Management (that transition is a long story that can be summed up with: I was young.) My graduate work is in Education and Child Development, with an emphasis on developing curriculum for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.
I spent eight years in banking, then seven years homeschooling my children, and then five years teaching band and orchestra at a charter school in southwest Phoenix. I returned to homeschooling in 2019.
I began writing fiction in January 2011, starting with a contemporary YA novel. That novel was accepted by a publisher, but by the time it finally had an offer, it didn't feel like me anymore, and I decided not to sign that contract. That story eventually morphed into a 1940s nuclearpunk romance that I still hope to publish someday. I turned away from romance and into science fiction and fantasy and found my flow, my home. I signed with Kirsten Carleton of Waxman Leavell in January 2015 and went on submission. Ms. Carleton left the publishing business in 2017 and I stepped away from writing to focus on my family for a while. In late 2018, I started querying again, this time in YA fantasy.
In 2021, I began writing children's non-fiction and fiction for Kiwi Crate, the monthly educational subscription box.
Online, my writing can be found on Medium, where I publish weekly content for parents and educators, on In Omnia Paratus, an online magazine I co-edit and author with Annette Lyon in which we analyze and critique Gilmore Girls, and on the Pineapple P. Podcast, a bi-weekly podcast about the brilliant writing of How I Met Your Mother, that I co-host with Darci Cole.
I joined American Night Writers Association in 2012 and started a local writing group in 2017. I have taught classes at the ANWA writing conference in Gilbert, AZ in 2019 and 2020, and am available for other conference appearances. Since December 2020, I have been serving as the finance chair for the Storymakers Conference in Provo, UT, which I have attended since 2013. I also worked on the committee for the Whitney Awards in 2020.
On a personal note, I have four children, three of whom have special learning needs. We have three more dogs than I want and we enjoy spending time together as a family (as in: we enjoyed quarantine 2020). I enjoy hiking, crossfit, and yoga, but am a spinal surgery warrior and can do basically none of that anymore. I have been to Disney more than you and am judging your Mexican food harshly.