Biography
Jackie lives in Chicago's western suburbs with her four sons (ages: 20, 18, 15, and 13), a dog, two cats and a 100+ year old house that she says is always in need of work.
She has a BSEE and an MBA, neither of which she really put to their intended use, and currently works from home as a web page developer. She spent 20+ years working in the corporate world, mostly in telecommunications and high-energy physics, as a programmer, technical writer, web page developer and manager. She's also a home-birth midwife, but quit practicing when Illinois started their midwife witch-hunt.
She wrote a lot in high school, mostly as a means of not going stir-crazy in a school that didn't challenge her. She'd write a new chapter every night and bring it in for a girlfriend to read during Spanish class. Jackie still have those stories. She says they are very bad. :-)
Then sometime in 2001, almost 25 years after those first stories, Jackie had a character start talking to her and insisting that her story be written. Jackie wrote about two chapters before the world interrupted. After an amicable divorce, she decided to ignore all logic and common sense and follow her dream of writing, rather than getting a real job. Over the next 5 years, Jackie finished that first story, tossed that version and finished it again, tossed that version and finished it again, and in general learned a whole lot about the writing and publishing process.
Now, Jackie works on other people's web sites while her kids are in school, makes commissioned stained glass windows and fabric art, writes in every spare moment she can find and intends to be published in the near future.