Jenna Schnuer

American Way: Light It UpDecember 2013

Let’s get beyond “storytelling” as a buzzword. Marketers toss it around with abandon these days. Fine. Yawn. Whatever. This story isn’t about that. It’s about the essence of storytelling. The person-to-person connections that well-told stories build. The things that happen in your brain when you’re on either side of a storytelling.

“Stories are our ultimate democracy, in the sense that everyone has them. Everyone has a deep need to tell them and to listen to them. They define us. They go across borders, boundaries, gender and their age — no matter what it happens to be,” says Colum McCann, author of novels including TransAtlantic and Let the Great World Spin. 

Read the full story on the American Way site. 

National Geographic Books: Four Seasons of Travel

National Geographic's big travel book for 2013 gives readers a season by season breakout of 400 fascinating travel experiences around the world. I contributed pieces about bear viewing in Alaska (with a focus on Anan Creek in Southeast Alaska), watching the Iditarod in downtown Anchorage, listening in on the Tin Pan South Songwriters Conference in Nashville, taking on NYC during the winter holiday season, and more.

Entrepreneur: Tasteful TreasuresMay, 2013

A flea market as restaurant incubator, hipster destination and a great place to find a lamp? Indeed. Find out how partners Eric Demby and Jonathan Butler got the Brooklyn Flea off the ground--and turned it into one of the borough's anchor events. 

Read the piece on Entrepreneur.com.

One+: Tell It Like It IsApril 2013

There are many traits common to real New Yorkers: A love of discussing how much they pay for their apartments; the absolute confidence with which they hand out subway advice; and the inability to keep the first appointment of the day—it’s part of the narrative of New York life.

So it wasn’t a big surprise when Joan Firestone, executive director of New York-based storytelling organization, The Moth, emailed to change the next day’s interview time. But Firestone had the most NYC-of-all reasons for the change: She was going to former Mayor Ed Koch’s funeral. 

Read my profile of Firestone from the April One+.

Entrepreneur Startups: Hungry for SuccessOct 2012

As night fell under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, N.Y., the air became perfumed with kimchi fried rice, chicken robata and mung-bean pancakes. The scene was the sold-out Luckyrice Asian food festival, one of the hottest tickets of the year for die-hard foodies on the East Coast, and the successful culmination of New York-based entrepreneur Danielle Chang's dream to raise the awareness of--and profit from--Asian cultures in the U.S.

Read more about Danielle Chang and her business, Luckyrice. 

One+: The InterdisciplinarianMarch 2012

It’s practically a requirement to raise an eyebrow at a person who calls herself an innovator. Innovator. It’s such a grand word. Isn’t that something we get to brand a person, not something she gets to call herself? Yet, every once in a while, somebody gets a pass. Or more than a pass. Every once in a while you come across a person who really should have “innovator” bedazzled on all of her shirts and printed on her license plates.

Take, for instance, Cathy Davidson. After a few minutes of eyeballs a-jumping through her bio—co-founder of the 7,000-member Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory (HASTAC), former Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke from 1998-2006, current English professor at Duke; after scrolling through the list of books she’s written or edited, which cover territory from understanding Japanese culture to the rise of the American novel to brain science; after finding out about her role in the creation of programs at Duke, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS); and, even more so, after hearing the sheer excitement in her voice when she discusses the Internet, education, her newfound love of young adult fiction and her ability to tie ideas together and make them accessible—well, innovator sounds downright humble.

Read the profile.

National Geographic Traveler: A Fair to RememberJuly/Aug 2011

The Ferris wheel awaits. This charticle serves up the Blue Ribbon goods on five State Fairs. Pick up the July/Aug issue of Traveler to find out the best place to eat candy buckeyes, which fair serves reindeer sausage, and where you can meet Bardo the Clown.

Entrepreneur: 100 Brilliant CompaniesJune 2011

The magazine's annual 100 Brilliant Companies report highlights great ideas across 10 different industries. For this year's section, I wrote about a travel search company, Hipmunk; a media app, Zite; and Yellow+Blue, a company that boxes up wine in the name of convenience, flavor, price, and the earth. Also in the June issue: How to map out an M&A brand strategy.

American Way: Know ThisMay 1, 2011

Break out of your reading rut with five books that will teach you things you didn’t think you needed to know about, but you’ll be grateful that you do. 

Read the piece.

National Geographic Traveler: New Yorkers' New York CityApril 2011

For this feature package about New York City, I wrote the introduction and a piece about the "oddest of underdogs," the Upper East Side. Here's how the piece begins:

Though I'm not usually very chatty on planes, I do love when, flying home to New York City, I end up sitting next to first-time visitors. They almost always have a slightly wild look in their eyes; it's a sign that they’re worried they won't be able to see everything. Their questions spill out, and I'm happy to answer them: Where should I go for dim sum? How do you get to Brooklyn? Have you ever been to the Apollo? What they really want to know: Is three days or five days or even a week enough time?

Read the rest of the piece.