Jeannie was raised on a farm near a small community in Oregon. There were six, counting her, in her high school graduating class. She was related to half the people in the county, a situation that fostered neither romance, nor privacy or adventure. It did tend to keep her in line and she hated it. She fled to the "city", lived in San Francisco, New York and Milano. And she began to write. Though they would never understand her need to tell "made up" stories, the good people she grew up with have become the foundation for a hundred characters.

Jeannie has had careers in business and in human resources (another petri for characters). She is lately working on a project to build a primary school for girls and boys in turbulent Helmand province, Afghanistan.