Cirrus@Austlit

Jessie Hutchison married Wilfred James Gay in 1929. After his accidental death in 1932, she married Kenneth Starr to whom she had become engaged in 1935. She was a member of the Kooroora Club, established in Sydney in 1929 as a social club of business girls who sought to serve the community by helping individuals and organisations. The club held short story and drama competitions in the 1930s in which Jessie Gay won prizes. The editor of Flame comments that she 'shows signs of becoming a well-known fiction writer. Mrs Starr has also become well-known through the snappy pars contributed to a Sydney weekly. Before her recent marriage, she had the opportunity of acting as a private secretary to several writers of note during their sojourn in Sydney. This experience helped to teach her how to handle her material' (Flame 1.1, 1936, p.64).