Paulette Jiles is an accomplished American author, known for her work in poetry, novels, and non-fiction. She has a deep educational background, holding a degree in Romance Languages from the University of Missouri. Jiles is a woman of many talents and interests, and when she is not writing, she can be found working on her ranch, where she cares for two horses and a donkey. She finds inspiration for her writing in the mornings, but during the hot weather months, she shifts her writing to the afternoons in order to tend to her ranch duties in the cooler mornings.
Jiles is not only a novelist, but also a poet and writer of memoirs. She was born in Salem, Missouri, in the Ozarks, and was raised in small towns throughout south and central Missouri. After graduating from the University of Missouri with a degree in Romance Languages, Jiles embarked on a career that took her to the far north of Ontario and the Quebec Arctic, where she helped set up village one-watt FM radio stations in the native languages of Anishinabe and Inuktitut. This experience exposed her to new cultures and ways of life, and undoubtedly influenced her writing.
In addition to her work in the north, Jiles spent time teaching at David Thompson University in Nelson, British Columbia, and served as a writer-in-residence at Philips Andover in Massachusetts. She has also lived in Texas since 1995, where she and her husband renovated an old stone house in the San Antonio historic district. It was during this time that she completed her novel "Enemy Women." Jiles now lives on a small ranch in the Texas Hill Country with a horse and a donkey, and enjoys playing Irish tin whistle with a bluegrass group, singing in choir, and riding remote trails in Texas with friends. Her horse's name is Buck. "News of the World" (William Morrow) was a finalist for the National Book Award.