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Jackie was born and raised in London, UK in a British-Chinese family.
She holds a Joint Honours degree in English & American Studies from The University of Nottingham, with a year abroad at Reed College in Portland, OR, and an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She has been lucky to study under and count amongst her mentors Julian Bell, Rob Young, Pete Rock, Gretchen Icenogle, Elizabeth Knox, and Sue Orr.
Though she wrote prolifically in her younger years, Jackie spent most of her adult life working around London as a freelance food writer and fine-dining pastry chef. At the end of 2016, Jackie, her husband and their two cats moved to New Zealand, where she opened her small business, Lashings (permanently closed in 2022). She became an NZ Citizen in 2022 and now calls Wellington home.
Jackie returned to writing in 2021. To date, her writing has been published in Newsroom, Headland, and The Spinoff, and is up-coming in Turbine | Kapohau. She was a co-editor of Turbine | Kapohau 2022, is the roving food journalist for Capital Magazine, and works as a freelance content writer and editor.
Jackie has just completed the first draft of a historical realist novel set in Hong Kong for her Master's and will be continuing to work on this in 2023.
About Jackie
Photo credit: Tabitha Arthur Photography