Jennifer Shahade is a Philadelphia based writer and gamesplayer. She is a two-time American Women's Chess Champion (2002, 2004). Her first book, Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport intertwined her own story with that of great women chess champions past and present. She is also a semi-professional poker player, and placed 17th out of more than 1200 players in the 2007 Ladies World Series of Poker event.
Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, New In Chess, the L.A. Times, and Chess Life Magazine, for which Jennifer is the web-editor. She has coached chess to talented youngsters all over the country and also performs simultaneous exhibitions in which she plays up to 50 people at once, in locations as various as Shanghai, China, Soweto, South Africa and a Girls' Scout Convention in Los Angeles.
I am just getting over a brutal migraine. Rather than chill, I did two stupid things within just one hour: I ate chocolate, and happened across a New York Times article by Caitlin Flanagan calling Juno, a funny and moving film about teen pregnancy, a "fairy tale."
My boyfriend and I went to Atlantic City for Christmas, because we couldn't think of anything more romantic than watching sad people lose $$. Really, we sat in our discounted hotel room watching movies and running jacuzzi after jacuzzi. During one of these hot water bonanzas, I saw Knocked Up, which deserves an Oscar for mediocrity. Do they have those yet?
