Jane Hamilton

Jane Hamilton (born July 13, 1957) is an American novelist. Early life Jane Hamilton was born and grew up in Oak Park, Illinois (U.S.), the youngest of five children. She won prizes for poetry and short stories throughout high school and college but was always told that being a writer would not be a viable career. Because she was not a good speller, she did not believe she could be a copy editor or editor either. She graduated from Oak Park and River Forest High School in 1975. Hamilton was accepted as an intern with Dell Publishing for Children after college and set out for New York with intention of becoming an editor. She reports that she stopped to visit a friend's apple orchard in Rochester, Wisconsin. It was there that she met her future husband, a partner in the orchard operation. Soon after, she moved to the orchard farmhouse, which allowed her the freedom to write during the off-season for harvesting. Despite rejection from the graduate programs she applied to, Hamilton kept writing in her spare time. In 1983, her short story, "My Own Earth" launched her career when an intern pulled it from a slush pile and passed it up to Harper's Magazine editor, Helen Rogan. The publication of "My Own Earth" was soon followed by more success when her short story "Aunt Marj's Happy Ending" was published by Harper's Magazine in December 1983. "Aunt Marj's Happy Ending" later appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1984