From Reader to Writer: My Journey to Jackson's Bridge

Hi, I’m Angela—

Author of the Jackson’s Bridge series, a contemporary women’s fiction series set in small-town Colorado. My stories blend emotionally rich, morally complex characters with small-town dynamics, historic Main Streets, and the breathtaking scenery of Colorado.

I’ve always been a reader first. From the quiet magic of Little Golden Books and Grimm Brothers’ Fairytales, I fell headfirst into the curious worlds of Trixie Belden, Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, and The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I was drawn to stories about brave, complex girls navigating big emotions in even bigger worlds.

As a teenager, I found myself pulled toward darker stories—Stephen King and V.C. Andrews—who taught me that trauma and family secrets could be just as gripping as any monster.

In my twenties, Marian Keyes added humor and humility to heartbreak, and Helen Fielding showed me the extraordinary in the ordinary world of Bridget Jones’s Diary.

I entered the world of classics at a time when I was exploring the meaning of self and life and loss—Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights, Zorba the Greek, The Great Gatsby among others. They were stories that didn’t flinch from human flaws and messy truths, and presented a timelessness with recurring patterns that were both comforting as well as daunting—my thoughts and feelings were common across time and place.

But it was the emotionally layered novels of modern greats like Anita Shreve, Maeve Binchy, Robyn Carr, and Jodi Picoult that showed me what I truly loved—women’s fiction grounded in character, morally complex storytelling, emotional transformation, and community.

And I didn’t just read about it, I lived it.

I grew up in a small town, I live in a small town, and in between I worked in small towns, getting to know their people, understanding their interconnectedness, and helping them to protect and create the very thing that they value the most—their community. Their lives were rich and their surroundings spectacular.

By the time Covid hit, I had been a wife for sixteen years, a mother for six, and quickly coming to appreciate the benefits of living in a beautiful small town during tough times—and that’s when the idea of Jackson’s Bridge sparked. And in the few quiet moments between homeschooling, replicating our favorite takeaways, and learning to make bread like so many others (and my husband’s emergency appendectomy), I began drafting the series.

I have a Masters in Business and a career in communication and marketing behind me, so it was natural to enter the world of self-publishing.

My reader journey and life experience informs my stories, which are true-to-life dramas and examples of real people overcoming extraordinary and contemporary challenges. They hold space for loss and longing, and always leave room for hope and the belief that starting over is possible.

If you love emotionally deep and page-turning stories, I welcome you to Jackson’s Bridge. You can read the first three chapters of the standalone series starter, Letting Go, for free—download your free read here.