Jane Kirkpatrick

Jane Kirkpatrick is an American author of Christian historical fiction whose novels frequently recover the experiences of real women overlooked by conventional histories. A Wisconsin native, she studied communications and public address at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later earned a master’s degree in clinical social work. Before becoming a full-time writer, she spent seventeen years working with Native American families on Oregon’s Warm Springs Reservation as a mental-health and early-childhood specialist and later directed the Deschutes County Mental Health Program. Kirkpatrick has published more than forty books, sold over two million copies and received honours including the Wrangler, WILLA, Will Rogers Medallion and Carol awards. Her fiction combines extensive historical research with themes of faith, endurance, community and women creating meaningful lives within restrictive circumstances.

Her major series include the Dreamcatcher books, beginning with A Sweetness to the Soul; the Kinship and Courage trilogy, which follows women travelling west after tragedy strikes their wagon train; and the Tender Ties series, based on the life of Marie Dorion and the overland expedition to the Pacific Northwest. The Change and Cherish trilogy—A Clearing in the Wild, A Tendering in the Storm and A Mending at the Edge—fictionalises the life of Emma Wagner Giesy and the Aurora Colony, while the Portraits of the Heart novels explore early female photographers. Kirkpatrick has also written numerous standalone historical novels inspired by real people, including The Daughter’s Walk, Where Lilacs Still Bloom, The Memory Weaver, Something Worth Doing, The Healing of Natalie Curtis and Beneath the Bending Skies. Her more recent Women of Cannon Beach series continues her interest in women whose determination shaped communities in the American West.