Jackson, Dot

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Jackson, Dot

PERSONAL:

Born in FL.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Pumpkintown, South Carolina.

CAREER:

Writer. Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, former reporter and columnist.

WRITINGS:

(With Frye Gaillard) The Catawba River, illustrations by Don Sturkey, Gardner-Webb College Press (Boiling Springs, NC), 1983.

Refuge: A Novel, Novello Festival Press (Charlotte, NC), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Dot Jackson began her writing career as a journalist, working for numerous newspapers across the South, and spending years as a reporter, columnist, and editor for the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina. A child of Appalachian parents, Jackson was fascinated by the lifestyle and culture in that part of the country. When she began writing a novel, she drew on that part of her background. The writing took time. Jackson herself noted in an interview for the Hub City Writers Project: "Fiction does not come naturally for me; my life has been spent as a reporter writing facts that give a pretty firm framework. Not that it's always easy to do that well—but there is satisfaction in it, in digging up truth and getting word out to people on something they want or need to know. There's a whole different set of ‘muscles’ involved in reporting than in writing fiction." The result was Refuge: A Novel. The book tells the story of Mary Seneca "Sen" Steele, a Southern woman who learns to overcome the hardships in her life and stand on her own. Ann H. Fisher, writing in the Library Journal, remarked that "this regional tale with a thick local accent develops into an entertaining saga." Gary Carden, writing in the Smokey Mountain News Online, remarked: "Dot Jackson's marvelous characters are privileged to be here and when their time is up, they lie down with joy in their hearts."