Jill MacLean’s working life began as a laboratory technician: at Dalhousie University, where she had studied for her Bachelor of Science degree; then at the Fisheries Research Board, Sydney City Hospital, and Mount Allison University.
During the four years she lived in Prince Edward Island, she researched an 18th century French settlement located near present-day Brudenell – this in pre-Internet days! Her monograph has been reissued in English and French.

In the early nineties, she completed a masters degree and started what was to become a longterm apprenticeship with a poetry group in Halifax; her collection of poems, The Brevity of Red, was published in 2003.

Shortly afterwards, her nine-year-old grandson asked her to write him a book. How could she say no? The result, many months later, was The Nine Lives of Travis Keating, published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside in 2008. The book is set in Newfoundland, where her family has lived since 1991; over the years, she’s canoed, hiked, and snowmobiled there, travelled the coves by boat and stayed in the outports – little knowing it could all be called “research.”

The sequel, The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy, is due to be released in October, 2009. And she is working on a third book, this one for young adults. She is an avid reader, who – in between writing her own books – is delighted to be rediscovering the exciting world of children’s literature. gmail address:

jillmaclean67@gmail.com

blog:
jillmaclean.wordpress.com