Dot Jackson was born to Appalachian parents in Miami, where she later gave up her college studies of music and dance to become a writer. Her lifelong career in newspapers drew her to the mountain regions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee, where she covered murder trials, snake-handling prayer meetings, and some of the hardest-fought environmental battles of our times. Her work garnered Jackson several Pulitzer Prize nominations and a National Conservation Writer of the Year award. She also has collaborated on several acclaimed books of non-fiction. She is co-founder and on-site manager of the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife in the Blue Ridge Mountains of South Carolina. Refuge is Dot Jackson’s first novel.