About

Do you need an official bio of Jennifer for something? Here you are: Jennifer Dziura is a New York-based comedian, blogger, and quizmistress best known for orchestrating the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, the nation’s most popular adult spelling bee, as featured in the New York Times. As a standup comic, she has performed at clubs and colleges nationwide and for the troops in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, and Africa. She writes quizzes and games, hosts math, trivia, vocabulary, and geography competitions for adults, and has produced over 100 shows at venues from Ivy League clubhouses to the famed rock club CBGB’s. She recently appeared in a Sci Fi Channel pilot for the television show Brain Trust, was filmed as an “expert” for a VH-1 reality dating show, has been heard numerous times on NPR, has contributed to five books including “The Idiot’s Guide to Jokes,” and was once unceremoniously cut from The Tyra Banks Show. Her one-woman show is entitled What Philosophy Majors Do After College. Need an official photo? Large versions of a few of our favorites are here (always credit photographers!), and large versions of a spelling bee photo by Brian Van are here. Photo at left by Bill Wadman. Need a little more info?  Read on…. Before Jennifer was New York’s most grammatically correct comedian, she was a philosophy major at Dartmouth, an educational adventure she has since parlayed into the one-woman comedy show What Philosophy Majors Do After College, in which she does her “History of Western Philosophy in Fifteen Minutes,” and then comedically discusses the sundry professions she’s held since: dotcom entrepreneur, art model, SAT instructor, body double, spelling bee impresario, egg donor to a gay man, and, finally, grammar-obsessed comedian.

She has performed (as a stand-up comedian) at colleges including

• New York University, Columbia University, Indiana University (Bloomington), West Virginia University, Bowling Green State University (Ohio), as well as in Ivy League comedy shows at the Penn Club (New York) and at Penn’s World Cafe Live in Philadelphia

…and New York venues including

• Caroline’s on Broadway, The Improv / Broadway Comedy Club, Stand Up New York, New York Comedy Club, The Comedy Cellar, The Comedy Village, Sal’s Comedy Hole, the Laughing Liberally comedy series (Host/Emcee), Mo Pitkins, Sin Sin, Pianos, Galapagos, Collective Unconscious, The Marquee, Cornelia St. Cafe, Apocalypse Lounge, and Fort Hamilton Army Base

…and national comedy clubs and festivals including

• The Boise (Idaho) Funny Bone; “Comedy, TN” in Memphis; Bear’s Place in Bloomington, IN; One-Liners Comedy Club in Greenwood, IN; Barrel of Laughs Comedy Club in Findlay, OH; and Philadelphia’s 215 Festival with Neal Pollack

…and she recently completed an East Coast tour of independent shows which included

• The D.C. Arts Center (sold out show!), The Red & The Black (D.C.), The Hamilton Arts Collective in Baltimore, The 305 South Anti-Mall in Durham (NC), The Garage in Winston-Salem (N.C.), and The Boot in Norfolk, VA (sold out!)

…and lastly, she just returned from a three-week tour of the Middle East in which she entertained the troops at

• Camp Arifjan, Kuwait; Camp Buehring, Kuwait; Camp L.S.A., Kuwait; Camp Virginia, Kuwait; Camp Patriot, Kuwait Naval Base; Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar; As Sayliyah, Qatar; Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, Africa; the U.S.S. Enterprise and the U.S.S. Gettysburg, 200 miles off the coast in the Persian Gulf; and Naval Support Activity, Bahrain.

Since 2004, Jennifer and her co-host bobbyblue have run the Williamsburg Spelling Bee, a real, cabaret-style spelling bee for adults which has been featured in the New York Times, on NPR, in TimeOut, on Good Morning America, and in lots of other press.

In 2008, Jennifer founded Chelsea Mind Games, a weekly live game show that alternates among Trivia, Geography, Math, and Vocabulary competitions.  An average of 30 people per week attend Mind Games, which was called one of New York’s “769 Ways to Enjoy the City Without Breaking the Bank” by Time Out New York.

Some years ago, for about six months, Jennifer made a few bucks modeling. She was selected for the national Faces of Change 2005 calendar, which then went bankrupt and was never printed. She has been signed with the V-Models Agency and has done fashion shows for Jillian Sherry and The Girdle Factory (both now defunct). Although she looks tall in photos, she isn’t especially.

A few astute “fans” have noted that Jennifer looks like Pee-Wee Herman in drag.

Jennifer has been a guest speaker at Old Dominion University in Norfolk and St. John’s University in Staten Island on internet marketing and branding topics. Her work in the field of internet marketing metrics is currently used in a graduate-level course reader at California Polytechnic University.

She also works as a teacher and tutor of the SAT, GMAT, and other standardized tests. She is a member of Mensa, and has perfect SAT and GRE scores.

In 2005 and 2007, Jennifer donated her eggs to (different) gay men for $8,000 and $10,000, respectively. She was featured in 2007 in an AP story about egg donation which led to many other interviews.  Her eggs are now off the market and are being carefully conserved for the production of a sardonic clone army.

In 2008, Jennifer rang in her thirtieth birthday by holding a male beauty pageant, in which eight studly young men squared off to be declared the Cuddliest.  Winner Nick Tong performed Elvis’ “Blue Christmas,” and the event was a rousing success among all ladykind.

In 2009, Jennifer premiered her one-woman show, What Philosophy Majors Do After College, at Ars Nova.  After a second performance at The P.I.T., she is now offering the show to colleges, and working on taking it on tour.  Spelling bees and other game shows are also available to corporate clients and private events.

In 2010, the Oprah Winfrey Network (which doesn’t launch til 2011) released to the Wall Street Journal an inspirational clip featuring Jen giving advice to her younger nerd-girl self.

Long ago, Jennifer was the state debate champion of Virginia (twice!)

She is a third-generation atheist.

Her last name is Polish; in fact, it is the Polish word for “hole,” so if you type it into Google Images, you get photos from Polish websites of black holes in space and various general craters, and Jen.  Her family pronounces its last name as “Di-ZUR-a,” which is not how anyone in Poland pronounces it.

If you have trouble remembering how to spell “Dziura,” please remember the old grammar-school rule: “U before I except after Z.” Unfortunately, this rule doesn’t rhyme and isn’t useful for spelling anything other than “Dziura.”

Jennifer is most proud of being the first person in her family to attend college, and of moving to New York on her own with $400 cash, and figuring things out from there despite numerous indignities.

She blogs daily.

Recent News: The Williamsburg Spelling Bee began its 12th season on August 16, 2010 and is running every other Monday until the Finals on December 6th.

Current projects: Jennifer’s new one-woman show about punctuation premiered at the Empire State Book Festival in Albany in April, 2010.  The show will be staged in NYC in September.

Jennifer drinks one Iced Quad Espresso per day.  She enjoys owning as many pairs of glasses and shoes as possible, feeding ducks, and correcting celebrities’ grammar.