Born to an American musician father, and English mother, Jemma grew up in leafy Hertfordshire and studied Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge University and Broadcast Journalism at the University of Westminster. She began her career as a journalist at The Jewish Chronicle and now works freelance splitting her time between journalism, writing for stage, and prose. Her first play, Negative Space, was staged in 2009 at Hampstead's New End Theatre, receiving critical acclaim. The idea for After Before was first spawned after attending a SURF charity event organised by her husband, in aid of survivors of the Rwandan genocide. It was there that Jemma heard first-hand some of the lingering effects of the 1994 war.