Brief Author Bio:

Kristen Jackson was born and raised in the Piney Woods of East Texas. A love of nature quickly became one of her first building blocks of creativity. In fact, most of her early watercolors and charcoal sketches were of trees and flowers. During her teenage years, Jackson traveled across the globe for short term missions trips with Global Expeditions. At the age of 16 she firmly decided her future would have a global perspective. She is a supporter of UNESCO, and the Fair Trade Organization.

Jackson graduated in 2007 from LeTourneau University with a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science with a minor in English, gaining Magna Cum Laude honors. During those college years she headed up several volunteer groups to aid the homeless in the area. She has travelled to over 19 countries studying culture, politics, and history. Currently, she is pursuing a MFA in Fiction at Pacific University. She hopes to use her combined interests of foreign affairs, education, and writing to write books for children across the globe that promote cultural literacy. She volunteers at the East Texas Literacy council in her free time. She is also a photographer, graphic designer, and multimedia painter by hobby. Jackson currently resides in her hometown with her dogs Sophie and Sebastian.

Jackson is inspired by the beauty in nature and in diverse human cultures. This love of beauty gave her an insatiable hunger to travel. She hopes that her photography, writing, and art encourage people to see the world like she does, through Christ's eyes. Jackson gives all her creative credit to God and says, [she] would paint every day with invisible paint just to know that God would see the strokes and be honored." Jackson say she is not a creator, merely an imitator of the greatest Artist to ever be, God.

In 2008 Jackson documented and published the biography of A.G. Kirchner, a WWII naval chief. The book is entiteled Wonder of Men: The Life and Times of A.G. Kirchner. It is available for purchase alongside her young adult novella The Greatest Secret, the first in the Tales of Taneslan serires she began in 2006. Jackson is currently working on a children's picture book series called Billy Button and the Garbage Gang. The series aims to teach children the value of recycling and other earth-friendly lessons.

A Note from Kristen Jackson
Ulysses and I, alike—struck by wanderlust

In a way, I relate to the reckless prideful king in the poem of Tennyson's version of Ulysses' character. He has traveled and had inumerable adventures in his youth, but is now confined to his homeland an aged man. He is restless and must break the shackles of life holding him down to normalcy. His normalcy is adventure. He puts many lives in danger by satiating his urge to break out of the constraints of old age by sailing away with several elderly mates. His pride gets him in trouble, but I can understand his need to take part in the world. These lines beat of the heart I share with Ulysses.

I am become a name;
for always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known--cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments...

...I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that un’travelled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move,
How dull it is to pause, to make an end...

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Wanderlust is commonly defined as a strong desire to travel, or by having an itch to get out and see the world.

“In Spanish there is a word for which I can't find a counterword in English. It is the verb vacilar, present participle vacilando. It does not mean vacillating at all. If one is vacilando, he is going somewhere, but does not greatly care whether or not he gets there, although he has direction.” -John Steinbeck in Travels with Charley