“I was the kid who read early and from then on proceeded to lose myself in books and make-believe.” 

In Jane’s Words

I have a still vivid memory from kindergarten of the teacher sending someone to the rest room to bring me back to class. She was so upset with me and I couldn’t understand why. I thought I’d been gone for about a minute; come to find out it was more like 20. I had started daydreaming and completely lost track of time.

Fiction writing as my calling was confirmed about 15 years later when I read a story excerpt aloud in a writing class in college. There was a long pause when I finished and then my classmates erupted in applause. 

After graduation, having to work for a living slowed me down a bit, but I was working in the field that was my second love: the food industry. Writing became more about food for a period, although I maintained journals and story drafts. I continued writing while I raised children but almost gave up on the dream because my days were so full with other people’s needs. 

And then my husband took a job with the government and we ended up on Naval Air Station Keflavik in Iceland for three and a half years. I met some other writers and formed a writing group with them. This became a wonderful outlet and oasis of calm in an otherwise chaotic day-to-day life. I began writing again in earnest, feeding group members pieces of what would become my first novel. It was finished in Iceland and I got my agent after querying from Iceland.

And the rest, as they say, is history. My first novel was published in 2001. A second novel in 2011, a move to Switzerland, then Chicago, a third novel arrived in Fall 2021, and who knows what’s next.

About Jane

Jane Alessandrini Ward is the author of In the Aftermath (She Writes Press, 2021), The Mosaic Artist (2011) and Hunger (Forge, 2001).

She graduated from Simmons University with a degree in English literature and began working almost immediately in the food and hospitality industry: private events planner, planner of corporate parties, and weekend baker.

She has been a contributing writer for an online regional and seasonal food magazine and a blogger and occasional host of cooking videos for an internet recipe resource affiliated with several newspapers across the country. Jane now divides her time between Chicago and the north shore of Massachusetts.

Read about Jane’s books. Read Jane’s “Local In Season” articles. Read more about Jane’s journey. See Jane’s photography.