Cirrus@Austlit

Jennifer Bacia was born of a Scottish mother and a Polish father, who died when she was nineteen. She studied Arts and graduated from the University of Queensland and subsequently worked in the areas of education, public relations and corporate management. She has lived in Rome, London and Los Angeles and has travelled widely in Eastern Europe and Asia. In 1995 Bacia married and settled on Queensland's Gold Coast.

She has been a member of PEN International and a visiting lecturer at Bond University. Two of her novels were selected as Literary Guild choices for the Doubleday Book Club and one has been translated into and published in Swedish, Greek, German and Polish. Her columns and short stories have appeared in several periodicals including The Sunday Mail, The Australian Women's Weekly, The Brisbane Review, The Gold Coast News, and The Sydney News.

The bestseller success of Bacia's first novel, Shadows of Power (1988), stimulated a market for contemporary Australian popular fiction writing. It became a Bookclub Choice, a leading title in the United Kingdom and was bought by foreign publishers. In 1992, Bacia was one of ten writers invited to attend a course sponsored by the Queensland government and run by the Australian Film, Television and Radio School. This award resulted in her writing the mini-series screenplay for her novel. In 1997 she wrote a well-received writers' guide, Creating Popular Fiction : How to Write Novels that Sell and in 1998 Chapter One: Everything You Want to Know about Starting Your Novel!