Memoirist. Feminist. Advocate.

For decades, Jacqueline St. Joan worked at the intersection of law, activism, and personal conviction. Her life has moved through courtrooms, feminist organizing, motherhood, an interracial marriage that reshaped family ties, and questions of identity, justice, and belonging.

Her upcoming memoir, Your Verdict: A Judge’s Reckoning With Law and Loss, traces those experiences with honesty and complexity, asking what it costs to live by our principles—and who ultimately renders the final verdict on a life.

Winner
of Solas Award for
Best Family Travel Writing:
“Mississippi Goddam”

AS SEEN IN:

About Jacqueline

Jacqueline St. Joan is an award-winning poet, memoirist, essayist, writer of fiction and feminist legal scholarship. Her writing intersects the fields of law and literature with the voices of contemporary protest and reconciliation. She writes about history and family fictions; the abuse of women and inheritance of racism; the minds of children, teaching and learning; law and justice and literature; South Asia, gardens, birds. She has a law degree and a Master’s in creative writing. A lifelong feminist, she is a retired lawyer and Colorado county judge, a lifelong social justice activist with a voice. Learn more about Jacqueline.

Upcoming Events

  • OFFICIAL LAUNCH

    June 12 (Loving Day)
    7:15 pm - 8:45 pm
    West Side Books, Denver
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  • Reading and Signing

    June 15
    6:30 pm - 8:00 pm

    Little Blue Pigeon Bookstore, Denver
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  • Reading and Signing

    June 17
    6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

    The Denver Book Society
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  • Reading and Signing

    June 27
    12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
    Barnes & Noble, Glendale
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Law, Literature & Voices of Protest & Reconciliation

  • Her first novel, My Sisters Made of Light(Press 53) was a finalist for the 2010 Colorado Book Award in Literary Fiction, and was a book of the month selection for the American Association of University Women. Through sales and donations, she raised $25,000 for the creation of a shelter for women and children in Punjab, Pakistan.  The sequel novel, The Shawl of Midnight, also set inside the women’s movement in South Asia, was published by Golden Antelope Press in 2022.

    Her short history fiction story, “Crossroads at Guntown,” will be published in Spring 2026 issue of Valley Voices, a literary review of the HBCU, Mississippi Valley State University; Summer of Love,” memoir excerpt, Northern Colorado Writers Anthology, Spring 2023, and "Mississippi Goddam"Valley Voices, in its special issue “A Sense of Place,” Spring 2022. The online short story, If It’s True, It Must Also Be Beautiful, in The Missouri Review, was nominated for Best of the Net and flash fiction, "The Home Visit" The Ravens Perch June 2022. She won the Black Sheep award from the Colorado Genealogical Society for her family fiction story, Cough Drop Joe,”

  • Her book of poems, What Remains, was published by Turkey Buzzard Press ins 2016. Among her poetry awards: Denver Press Club, Colorado Council on the Arts fellowship; William Battrick Award in Poetry at University of Colorado; fellowship with Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute, and writer in residence at Wildacres, North Carolina.  Her poetry has been published in periodicals such as (most recently, New York Quarterly) Ms., The Denver Quarterly, SageGreen Journal, Montelibre and Colorado Women News. Until its closure in 2020, she was the News Poetry Editor for The Colorado Independent.

  • Her nonfiction ranges from memoir to op-eds to legal scholarship, book reviews, travel writing, social justice essays and rants.  She recently reviewed the poetry anthology, The Four Faces of Eve, www.compulsivereader.com, “Dismantling White Supremacy:  The Importance of History and the Role of Neighbors,”www.renameforall.com, 2020, Thinking About How to Think About Renaming Stapleton, " www.renameforall.com, 2018.Several pieces have won awards, for example, “Meeting the Dalai Lama in Tibet,” Silver, Women’s Solas Travel Writing Award and the 1996 Rocky Mountain MLA Award for Best Feminist Essay. She has published in the Harvard Women's Law Journal, Empire Magazine, and others.

  • She co-edited (with Annette Bennington McIlhiney) the anthology, Beyond Portia: Women, Law & Literature in the U.S. (Northeastern UP) and her writings have appeared in numerous anthologies, such as The Quotable Woman, Tumblewords: Writers Reading the West;Disturbing the Peace:Writings by Colorado Attorneys, Chokecherries Anthology, Kaleidoscope: Lenses on Reality, The Legal Studies Forum, and Fungi Anthology, and Thinking Women:Introduction to Women's Studies, Poems from the Back Forty, Mycoepithalamia: Mushroom Wedding Poems.

Browse her writings by theme:

Women & The Law

Violence against women, feminism.

History & The West

The American West, cities & families.

Racial Justice

Racism, injustice

Dharma & South Asia

Buddhism, liminal spaces, spirituals.

Culture & Nature

Canada geese, gardens, summer.

Family & Children

Mothers, bravery & loss.

Recent Books for Sale