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Born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks, Paulette Jiles has duel citizenship in the United States and Canada.  Canada inspired her to write poetry, but it was her native land of the Ozark Mountains that led her to make the transition from poetry to first time novelist.

Before writing Enemy Women, her debut novel, Jiles was awarded the Governer’s Award, the highest literary honor for poetry in Canada.  When asked she has said that the transition from poetry to novel writing was not so very difficult.  She seems to have enjoyed it.  Prior to the The Color of Lightning: A Novel, and Enemy Women: A Novel (P.S.), Jiles wrote Cousins, North Spirit: Sojourns Among the Cree and Ojibway. : An article from: The Women’s Review of Books, Song to the Rising Sun. Enemy Women, which deals with the lives of women in the split state of Missouri, brought her recognition in the United States. Her newest book Stormy Weather: A Novel (P.S.) is set in Central Texas in the 1930′s and once again it deals largely (and superbly) with the strength of women during traumatic times.

Jiles lives in San Antonio Texas with her husband where she is working on a second novel.