Jennifer Manocherian has had more careers than a cat has lives.

She went to Barnard after high school but dropped out in her sophomore year, anxious to get a job. Instead she got married and by the time she was 27, she had four children and her focus was on parenting.

The women’s movement hit when she was close to thirty and she wanted in, but without a degree and with several children, she wasn’t sure how or what her path might be. With writing in her DNA, she began by writing a few articles for a local magazines. However, her time was limited and broken up by car pools, etc.’ in short too frustrating to continue, so she turned to creating a small import-expert business with goods from Iran. She hated it! Having taken college courses throughout her twenties, she decided to get her B. A. at an alternative program SUNY offered which accepted her year at Barnard and other credits. She got her degree the year she gave birth to her fifth child and started working part time in
public relations in a business her husband started.

After two years she realized that working and living together wasn’t an ideal situation and decided to get a masters in counseling, which she followed with two years of clinical training in family therapy. She opened a private practice and later was on faculty at Family Institute of Westchester (FIW). She added training in the then new field of divorce mediation and had a private practice. She developed a training program at FIW, teaching alongside a lawyer/mediator.

A decade or so later she committed career suicide by becoming a theatre producer. Over the years she was involved in producing over thirty shows on Broadway, off Broadway, one in London. At the same time, she returned to writing. She wrote books of two musicals, both of which have been filmed for streaming. She and her composer/director team are currently developing a
third. She also wrote a film with one of her sons that she produced in 1996, and more recently a film now being edited that will hopefully be available in 2024.

She taught screenwriting at the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute for several years and now teaches/script doctors privately.

During covid she wrote a novel that started with a writing prompt years earlier for a short story. Her next novel is partly on the page but mainly in her head at the moment.