CONTACT
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ABOUT JACQUELINE
Jacqueline Guidry is the author of the novel The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town, named a best book of the year by the Kansas City Star, chosen as the Community Read in Kansas City, Missouri and Windsor, Connecticut, awarded the Thorpe Menn prize for literary excellence and the Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Award, and selected for the McNaughton program and the Pen/Faulkner Writers in Schools program. Her short works have appeared in more than 100 publications ranging from Spitball and Sassy to The Southampton Review and Louisiana Literature. Her work received the Yemassee Award for Fiction and was cited as runner-up or finalist in competitions sponsored by Big Muddy, Broad River Review, the Chattahoochee Review, the Dana Awards, Hunger Mountain, Laurel Review, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Rosebud, Salem College, Saturday Evening Post, and Story. She is a five-time Pushcart nominee and a seven-time finalist for a Faulkner-Wisdom gold medal.
Ernest Gaines once said his goal was to be a better writer today than he was yesterday, a better writer tomorrow than he is today. Eudora Welty tried “to enter into the mind, heart, and skin” of her characters. Jacqueline is inspired by the wisdom of these writers. Their words guide her as she strives to perfect her work, better today than yesterday, and to delve deeply into the characters she creates.
Jacqueline, a Cajun, grew up in Acadiana. Those early Louisiana experiences are a constant presence in her life and a frequent influence in her work. She never turns down a bowl of gumbo, a plate of crawfish etouffee, the chance to sing an off-key rendition of Allons Danser Colinda, or the opportunity to hear French, preferably with a Cajun accent, evocative of her childhood. After practicing law for many years, she now indulges addictions to chocolate, sparkling water, KenKen, Sudoku, and baseball. Jacqueline lives in Kansas City with her husband, Michael, and they have two adult daughters and one awesome granddaughter.