Jean Harkin is the author of Night in Alcatraz and Other Uncanny Tales, an eclectic collection of short stories published in 2016. She lives in Portland, Oregon and has had a varied writing background. 

She graduated from Creighton University and pursued a career in journalism, beginning as a direct mail advertising copywriter for “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine in Des Moines, Iowa. After she married and was raising her family, she wrote news and features, along with photography, for a community newspaper.

She later wrote interviews and took photographs to create newsletters for the Iowa State University Foundation in Ames, Iowa. During that time, Jean took a course in creative non-fiction and discovered a different style of writing. After a move with her husband to Portland, Oregon, she completed the switch from journalism to writing fiction, when she joined the Writers’ Mill writing group.

Her short stories, poems, and some essays have appeared in various anthologies, mainly The Writers’ Mill Journal series from 2008 to 2021, also Itty Bitty Writing Space (2019); and Strongly Worded Women (Not a Pipe Publishing, 2018.)

Jean began writing her debut novel, Promise Full of Thorns, in November, 2007. As an unpublished novel, it was selected as a finalist in the Maple Lane Books publishing contest, 2016. Since then, the book has gone through numerous revisions and edits.

Jean's blog appears at www.goodreads.com/jeanatwritersmill.