About Jacqueline
Jacqueline Winspear was born and raised in the county of Kent, England. Following higher education at the University of London’s Institute of Education, Jacqueline worked in academic publishing, in higher education and in marketing communications in the UK. She emigrated to the United States in 1990, and while working in business and as a personal/professional coach, Jacqueline embarked upon a life-long dream to be a writer—she subsequently became a regular contributor to journals covering international education and travel, and has published articles in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and other publications. Her short stories have appeared in magazines internationally, and Jacqueline has recorded her essays for KQED radio in San Francisco. She has contributed to several anthologies of essays and short stories.
“The war and its aftermath provide fertile ground for a mystery. Such great social upheaval allows for the strange and unusual to emerge and a time of intense emotions can, to the writer of fiction, provide ample fodder for a compelling story, especially one concerning criminal acts and issues of guilt and innocence. After all, a generation is said to have lost its innocence in The Great War. The mystery genre provides a wonderful vehicle for exploring such a time,” explains Ms. Winspear.
Jacqueline has published two non-fiction books: What Would Maisie Do? (2018) based upon the series, and a memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing (2020). In addition, her recent published essays include Writing About War, for which she interviewed writers including Kate Atkinson, Rhys Bowen, Jeff Shaara and Adam Hochschild, exploring the impact of writing about war on the author, and Women On Fire, about women working in wildfire management. Her essay on writing historical mysteries appears in the anthology/handbook from Mystery Writers of America: How To Write A Mystery edited by Lee Child (April 2021). In 2024, she wrote Wars and Moments in Time: A Brief Look at the Historical Scope of the Maisie Dobbs Series.