About the Author Jen Woodard is the Fine Arts Department Chair at Mississippi Delta Community College, where she teaches ceramics, drawing, painting, and art appreciation. A two-time Mississippi Humanities Teacher of the Year (2014, 2024), she holds an MFA in Three-Dimensional Art from Mississippi College and has authored five art textbooks spanning ceramics, drawing, painting, and photography. In 2018, she founded the college's Art Club with a simple rule: no negativity. What started as a handful of pottery students wanting a place to hang out has grown into a campus sanctuary where students of all majors find community, calm, and creativity. Jen believes deeply in the healing power of art. When someone walks in stressed, she hands them a piece of clay. When a student asks how to know if their clay is centered, she tells them: you feel it in your soul. When she's not covered in slip or grading papers, Jen drinks coffee, dreams of Paris, and sells handmade pottery, paintings and drawings through her store, Fox & Flame. She lives in the Mississippi Delta with her three kids and a collection of dogs.