J.J., Stinky, and Chris
ABOUT J.J.
Official Bio
J.J. (Myers) Grabenstein is an author, stage actress, and award-winning audiobook narrator. With her husband, Chris Grabenstein, J.J. co-authored the acclaimed middle grade novel SHINE! The duo now collaborates on the early reader series “STINKY’S STORIES,” both co-writing and narrating each book.
A graduate of Northwestern University, J.J. quickly made a home in New York City appearing in Broadway tours and starred in the off-Broadway musical comedy Nunsense. She has recorded more than 20 audiobooks—everything from nonfiction to romance novels—but her favorite books to record are children’s books. For the recording of Chris Grabenstein’s ghost story The Crossroads she won AudioFile magazine’s Earphones Award. An Audie Awards© finalist in 2021 for STUCK, J.J. has also voiced several radio and TV commercials.
J.J. and Chris live in New York City with their dog Zoey and two cats, Luigi and Phoebe Squeak
Before she was a writer, J.J. was a reader. In fact, she read every single Chris Grabenstein book before anyone else and made lots of great suggestions to make sure they were never boring.
J.J. is also a very talented voice performer. In fact, one of her fun voices was the inspiration for Stinky D. Skunk and the Stinky’s Stories series.
You can also hear J.J. read several of her Chris’s books as the narrator for the audio versions of The Crossroads (An “Earphones Award” winner), The Hanging Hill, The Smoky Corridor, and The Black Heart Crypt from his haunted mysteries series as well as The Explorer’s Gate, a fantasy set in New York City’s Central Park. She also appears in the cast of the Chris Grabenstein Audible Originals Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers and Stuck. (She’s Riley’s mom and a chipmunk named Chuck.)
After she graduated from college, J.J. moved to New York City and started auditioning for shows. Before long, she was working in musicals and traveling all over the country. She had lots of different parts but one of her favorites was playing sister Mary Amnesia in an Off-Broadway show called Nunsense!
After being a nun for a long time, J.J. decided to do something completely different. So she married Chris Grabenstein—the best children’s book author ever! (Actually, when they got married, Chris had just quit his job as a big cheese advertising executive. But, she had faith.) They were “mauied” in Maui, Hawaii on the 4th of July!