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J.A. Jance (Judith Ann) is the New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series, the J. P. Beaumont series, three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family, and the Ali Reynolds series.
Born in South Dakota in 1944 and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona. Before becoming an author, she worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation, as a teacher, and selling insurance. She lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
J.A. Jance's website
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As a second-grader in Mrs. Spanglers Greenway School class,
I was introduced to Frank Baums Wizard of Oz series. I read the first
one and was hooked and knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to be a
writer.
The third child in a large family, I was four years younger
than my next older sister and four years older then the next younger sibling.
Being both too young and too old left me alone in a crowd and helped
turn me into an introspective reader and a top student. When I graduated
from Bisbee High School in 1962, I received an academic scholarship that made
me the first person in my family to attend a four year college. I
graduated in 1966 with a degree in English and Secondary Education. In
1970 I received my M. Ed. in Library Science. I taught high school
English at Tucsons Pueblo High School for two years and was a K-12
librarian at Indian Oasis School District in Sells, Arizona for five years.
My ambitions to become a writer were frustrated in college and
later, first because the professor who taught creative writing at the
University of Arizona in those days thought girls "ought to be teachers
or nurses" rather than writers. After he refused ...
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