Bio
J. Anderson Coats owns 194 books about the middle ages. This doesn’t seem like very many unless you consider the fact that she’s never had a real job.
Jillian grew up in a houseful of books alongside two cats and an older brother. Her mother, a librarian, exposed her to the beauty and diversity of the written word. Her father, a scientist, taught her to question it. Both of them encouraged her to write, even when her stories were written in crayon and featured nothing but ponies.
At age thirteen, Jillian finished her first novel. It was pretty bad, but fortunately no one told her that. By the time she graduated from high school, she’d written six other novels, including one massive 500,000-word doorstop book with a sweeping, complicated plot and way too many characters. None of these books was very good, but she loved every single one and learned something new with each.
Jillian studied history at Bryn Mawr College, where she graduated magna cum laude with departmental honors. She also holds a master’s degree in library and information science from Drexel University and a master’s degree in history from the University of Washington. She loves the smell of old books, and she’d set up camp in the archives if they didn’t keep locking the door at night.
Currently, Jillian lives in the Pacific northwest in a hundred-year-old house with her husband, teenage son, and a cat with thumbs.