ABOUT ME

I'm a writer from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina. I began writing poetry at age seven, my first poem written while hiding under my bed covers with a flashlight in an attempt to get my parents to stop arguing while I was trying to sleep. It worked and from then on I was hooked on the power of the pen. My poems, essays, speeches and editorials have appeared in the halls of Congress when I was a press secretary and in The Democrat & Chronicle and Kinston Free Press newspapers, and in numerous anthologies. My first book of poems was published in 2017 by Spirited Muse Press ("Ten Good Things About The Rain And Other Poems") and my first memoir was published by Black Rose Writing in 2018 ("Surviving Madmen: One Woman's Encounters With A Governor, Two Congressmen, And A Spouse"). Both are available on Amazon.com. I make my home in Western New York where I work in clinical trials by day and writing and advocacy by night. I am obsessed with music and birds and all things scrumptious. I'm a single mother to grown children and a cat named Midnight who thinks he's a dog. On Sundays I bake and bird and write my series "Sunday Morning Offerings."

Email: jerrilynn.sparks@gmail.com