About J.B.

J.B. Frank is the third child of 14 sib­lings. They all lived in a small bun­ga­low in Chicago’s North­west Side. Dur­ing sum­mers when she was young, her father would hold con­tests. An entire wall in their kitchen was a black­board where her dad would post the con­tests, which ranged from recit­ing poet­ry to writ­ing sto­ries. J. B. won one of the con­tests with her sto­ry about an alien. Her prize was a pen. She remem­bers fond­ly that the pen had a gold band and the ink smelled sweet. She dreamed of being a writer, but fate’s path head­ed in a dif­fer­ent direction.

J.B. became an accom­plished tele­vi­sion pro­duc­er with a num­ber of award-win­ning pro­duc­tions. She won an Emmy Award for her doc­u­men­tary, Ruth Page: Once upon a Dancer, and a CINE Award for Love Hurts, an ABC After­school Spe­cial. She was also nom­i­nat­ed for a nation­al Emmy for a children’s music show, and that expe­ri­ence — work­ing to con­nect with kids — rekin­dled her dream to write specif­i­cal­ly for children. 

Aunt to 32 nieces and nephews, great-aunt, and god­moth­er, J. B. shares sto­ries with her fam­i­ly and told of grow­ing up in a large fam­i­ly in Chicago.

She earned her MFA in writ­ing for chil­dren and young adults from Ham­line University.

She has writ­ten arti­cles for a num­ber of children’s mag­a­zines and journals.

J. B. is more intent than ever on liv­ing the writ­ing life she always dreamed of. She moved out of the city and now lives in the coun­try with her sweet­heart and their dogs, Mar­co and Mia, along with chick­ens, ducks, and hon­ey­bees. J.B. is already hard at work on her next story.