Jill P. Anderson

"Running from Moloka`i" is Jill's debut novel, published in 2020. Her recently released next novel, "Last Dream Standing" is also historical fiction. "Both intimate and epic," (thank you B. for your comments) this story follows a coal mining family in Wales in the early 1900's. They are hurting -- of course they are, otherwise there is no story. They are desperate for the arrival of a second child who they believe will be the answer to their prayers. But when little Howie is born, their dreams are shattered. Naturally --because who wants to read 432 pages of fulfilled dreams where there are no lies, no secrets, no betrayal, no awful choices to be made, and no tragedy? Then the truth, along with WWI, will reshape them -- not to who they used to be, not to their lost dreams -- but to who they needed to become. But all of them will pay and pay. Jill was one of the fortunate kids to grow up in the tree-covered, rock-strewn mountains of Colorado, skiing every winter weekend in the Rocky Mountain National Park. It's still a special place for her. So is her current home in the Pacific Northwest. Her interests vary a great deal. She loves building ponds, streams and waterfalls. Her degrees include a double major in Psychology and English, graduate school at the Univ. of Northern Colorado and doctoral studies at Northwestern University. In between, she did graduate work in Philosophy. [What better place to explore Philosophy than Berkeley during Haight Ashbury and the Berkeley Riots?] Her favorite areas of exploration? Psychology and Philosophy. After teaching special education (deaf and hard-of-hearing children) for many years, Jill became interested in writing. Then she attended TheFilmSchool in Seattle. Film School ... and Writing? "They go together like cookies and milk." Fast forward a few years, and thanks to the creative vibes of Santa Fe, she explored the nourishing world of art. One of her earliest pieces was a winner in The Artists' Magazine annual art contest...a landscape piece done in what she called Ebrylics, combining Turkish Ebru with traditional Acrylics. The magazine editors kept sending emails saying, "You're a winner!" But she was not about to fall for that Nigerian Prince business, so she kept deleting them. They finally called her. Until recently her work was at the beautiful Freed Gallery on the Oregon Coast. Her favorite is a commissioned piece: a digitally created elk composed of around 700 layers of images, all of them taken from photos of a piece of petrified wood owned by the collector. The final image of the elk -- with a huge rack of antlers -- was dye-infused onto aluminum. The final image required around 150 hours of intricate work.