Jennifer Oko

Jennifer Oko is the author of four books of fiction and nonfiction. Her memoir Lying Together: My Russian Affair (as Jennifer Beth Cohen) was twice named an "Editor’s Choice” by The New York Times Book Review and praised by Publisher’s Weekly as “sharp, fast-paced.” Her novels include Gloss, a satire of morning television hailed as “a rare treat” by The Chicago Tribune; Head Case, a comic mystery about psycho-pharmaceutical trafficking; and her latest, Just Emilia, a darkly comic, time-bending story in which three women — a troubled teen, a frazzled mom in midlife, and an older woman grappling with regret — discover they are all the same person, trapped in a DC Metro elevator and forced to confront the unresolved trauma that has shaped their lives. Also a journalist and filmmaker, Jennifer is co-founder of Because. Media, producing documentaries for HBO, Netflix, PBS, and The New York Times. She holds degrees from Columbia University, Tufts University, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and lives in Washington, DC.