About

Portfolio/Clips can be found here.

Preservation recipes can be found here.

Jennifer Burns Bright creates content to educate and inspire audiences to love the Pacific Northwest. Like many people who live in the PNW, she wears many hats. She serves at the full-time Travel & Tourism Editor for MEDIAmerica, an Oregon-focused custom publishing company that works with Travel Oregon, its many regional and municipal partners, and other visitor-facing Oregon organizations like the Oregon Wine Board and Rogue Valley Wine Country.

Her small freelance business, Burns Brightly Media, specializes in sharing the joys of local food and travel in the West, especially Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Time is limited these days, but please drop her a line at wellsuited at gmail for inquiries about editing projects or marketing and editorial copy/photographs.

She is a food educator.

Experienced in teaching culinary skills, including preserving fruit, canning fish, foraging seaweed, and fermenting vegetables, Bright regularly provides demos and hands-on classes to build an appreciation for our local producers and increase self-sufficiency. She focuses on sustainable seafood and using Northwest ingredients. She also occasionally reviews restaurants, cookbooks, products and kitchen appliances.

Since 2016, Bright has been based on the Oregon Coast (in Port Orford and Astoria). She led 70 Oregon Humanities Conversation Project community discussions (on local seafood traditions and the DIY movement) throughout Oregon. Before the pandemic, she produced and hosted a quarterly radio interview program on KMUN-Coast Community Radio called “A Fine Kettle of Fish” and served on the board of the North Coast Food Web in Astoria.

She is an old guard influencer.

Once playfully labeled a “seafood influencer,” this is not wrong, but perhaps it’s more of an old guard-style influencer. Bright treats businesses she believes in as long-term relationships, not just a photo shoot or hashtag (though she can shoot and tag with the best of them). Her recommendations surface in bold and subtle ways, in print, on social media, and across her wide network behind the scenes. Her “Cooking Local Seafood 101” and “What’s Local? Catch of the Day” courses have been popular draws for tourists and locals alike at libraries, community organizations, and resort happy hours, and she has helped amplify voices in the local food world through producing various guest speaker series and panels for events like conferences and festivals.

She is a recipe developer/tester and a food photographer.

For industry clients and home cooks, Bright brainstorms, creates, and tests recipes to reflect the best in locally harvested goods. Recent projects have included bean variety testing, surimi crackers, Dungeness crab, and albacore tuna. Her recipes and thoughtful headnotes reflect an understanding of history, global cuisine, and pro tips, and her simple yet effective photographs show off dishes at their best.

She is travel writer and enhancement speaker for the travel industry.

Bright contributes regularly to AAA’s print magazines in the West, which collectively reach almost six million households each issue, and many other regional and national media outlets. She produces clean and compelling copy, and edits for clarity and oomph. She also occasionally speaks on food history and food systems issues in a variety of venues, from museums and food festivals to small ship cruises.

She has a solid background in research, editing, teaching, and local food production.

Bright taught literature and food studies at the University of Oregon in Eugene for seven years, leaving academic life to write about seafood on the coast in 2014. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California at Irvine and Master Food Preserver and Master Gardener certifications from OSU Extension. Working with students and academic colleagues honed her editing and collaboration skills, as they worked together to produce great work with crisp, persuasive copy in a distinctive voice. She has worked with countless professionals and organizations to perfect essays, websites, newsletters, grant narratives, and fundraising appeals. Teaching food studies courses provided a great background in agricultural history and current issues facing today’s producers.

In her free time, Bright enjoys hiking, gardening, fishing, hunting for mushrooms and shellfish, fermenting, creating exquisite jams from foraged and gleaned fruit, swimming in large bodies of water, and relaxing in spas.