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Jeanne Meeks

Born: 1951 in Evergreen Park, IL
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: ==Illinois Connection==Illinois has been Meeks' home since she was born. Her birth certificate says Evergreen Park, but her family lived on the southside of Chicago at the time. She has also lived in Country Club Hills, Oak Forest, Tinley Park, New Lenox, and Loda, Illinois. She attended grammar schools in Midlothian and Oak Forest and High School in Tinley Park. She graduated from Governors State University in University Park, Illinois, but also attended Prairie State in Chicago Heights and Joliet Junior College in Joliet. The main character of her first two novels is from the Chicago suburbs and then moves to the farm country near Paxton in central Illinois.

Biography: Jeanne Meeks began backpacking in 2005 and hiked across the Grand Canyon. That trip inspired ''Rim to Rim'', her first novel. ''Wolf Pack'', set on Isle Royale, Michigan soon followed. Future novels in this Backcountry Mystery series will be set in the Wind River Range, Wyoming; along the Great Blueway Kayak Trail in Florida, and in other wild places she plans to explore. Jeanne was an Outdoor Trainer for the Girl Scouts and a leader for twelve years. She inspires young girls and older women to get out and enjoy nature.In the 1990s Ms. Meeks was committed to poetry, belonged to ''Poets and Other Writers'', and gave poetry performances as part of that group. Her work has appeared in several anthologies. She also self-published a book of poetry, ''My Sister’s Quilt''. She now writes human-interest articles for ''Schoolhouse Life'' news magazine. She loves attending writers conventions and workshops to mingle with other authors in the mystery genre. After twenty-eight years in business, Ms. Meeks and her husband sold their security surveillance company. While in business, Ms. Meeks was recognized by Illinois’ governor, Jim Edgar, as the Small-Business Person of the Year. She has been the New Lenox Township Tax Collector, the President of the New Lenox Chamber of Commerce, on the board of a local bank, and on Silver Cross Hospital’s Community Trustee Board. Ms. Meeks now writes full-time and belongs to Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and several writers groups. When not writing, she hikes, kayaks, and plays tennis or golf. Married in 1969, she and her husband live in a suburb of Chicago.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Fiction; Mystery

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Email: jeanne2meeks@aol.com
Website: http://www.jeannemeeks.com
Jeanne Meeks on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=jeanne+meeks


Selected Titles

Rim to rim :
ISBN: 1492130249 OCLC: 869885762

Charter House Press, New Lenox, IL : ©2013.

When her husband serves her with divorce papers for her fiftieth birthday, Amy Warren sets out to rebuild her self-esteem by backpacking across the Grand Canyon. She expected the hike to be difficult: heat, elevation, rattlesnakes; but when she finds a mangled body in a ravine and a series of suspicious events occur along the trail, the adventure takes a dangerous twist.

Wolf pack :
ISBN: 1497443237 OCLC: 884287004

Chart House Press, New Lenox, Ill. : [2014]

Will blackmail and backpacking on an island famous for its wolves mend the relationship between Amy and her daughter? Or will they be next to die on Isle Royale? Emboldened by her adventures in the Grand Canyon, Amy Warren again laces up her hiking boots. She ferries with her daughter, Meagan, to Isle Royal National Park. When volunteer ranger Sarah Rochon is accused by a co-worker of assault and theft, Amy is torn between spending precious time with Meagan and clearing her best friend's name. When Amy rescues Remington, a pampered Havanese show dog, from the frigid waters of Lake Superior, he becomes her champion. Together they sniff out clues to the evil that threatens the natural tranquility of the magical island.

 

 

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