Jan Burke
Jan Burke is a critically acclaimed and national bestselling author of novels and short stories, and winner of the Edgar® Award for Best Novel. Her mystery series, featuring Southern California newspaper reporter Irene Kelly, includes Goodnight, Irene; Sweet Dreams, Irene; Dear Irene; Remember Me, Irene; Hocus; Liar; Bones; Bloodlines and Kidnapped. She is also the author of Flight, featuring Irene’s husband, homicide detective Frank Harriman; Nine, a standalone thriller; and a collection of her short stories, entitled Eighteen.
Jan was born in Texas, but has lived in Southern California most of her life, often in coastal cities—several of which combine to make up the fictional Las Piernas, where Irene Kelly works and lives. She comes from a close-knit family, and remains close to not only her parents, her two sisters (neither of whom resemble Irene’s sister, Barbara) and brother, but also a wonderful assortment of nephews, nieces, cousins, aunts, and uncles. She and her husband, Tim, share their home with two dogs, Cappy and Britches. Jan’s husband is musician Tim Burke, whose bands include Bushtaxi. If you want to hear Bushtaxi’s music, go to their website.
She attended California State University, Long Beach, and graduated with a degree in history.
She served as the original editor of Sisters in Crime’s guide to getting published, Breaking And Entering. She is a past president of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and has served on MWA’s National Board. Jan served as an associate editor, with Barry Zeman, on Writing Mysteries, the MWA handbook edited by Sue Grafton, published in 2002. Jan also contributed the chapter on Revision to the book.
Jan believes strongly in the importance of greater support for forensic science in the U.S., and is the founder of the Crime Lab Project. She urges you to visit the CLP site and to contact your legislators about this issue.