JB Hamilton Queen was born in Berea, Kentucky, a small town at the foothills of Appalachia.?She grew up on a farm in a region known as Opossum Kingdom, only miles from Wilderness Trail, where Daniel Boone made his way to the Kentucky River and settled Boonesboro along its sandy bank. As a child, she enjoyed working the fields of the one hundred sixty acres, where the turn of a shovel uncovered Indian relics; arrowheads, tomahawks, and cooking vessels, and stirred her imagination. She made up stories of the men hunting with bows and arrows and fighting battles, the women cooking over fires outside tepees, and acted them out with her oldest brother and his friends. Her fondest memories of second grade were the classroom visits from a Cherokee Indian Chief in full headdress, and the old Cherokee woman who acted out stories with her handcrafted horses and Indian dolls. JB never realized until years later that she, herself, has Cherokee blood running through her veins, perhaps the reason she had always felt a strong kinship.
The writer once explained that as a child, aside from school primers, she read only three books, and she read them by the amber glow of a kerosene lamp; Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, and The Vanishing Redhead, a paperback mystery, author’s name forgotten. Gone with the Wind continues to be her favorite novel, Wuthering Heights a close second. She has a voracious need to read as well as to write, loves doing research for her novels and often gets sidetracked by an exciting story idea, which she notes for a future short story or novel. She has a deep love for the south, has never lost her accent, and enjoys bringing her heritage to the page, the beauty of the countryside, the strength of those who live there, and the courage that dwells within them all.
Queen has always reached out, explored and sought challenges.? Her careers include executive secretary, nightclub singer, fashion model, nightclub owner, fashion designer and clothing manufacturer.? Growing up on a farm, it never occurred to JB that she could become a professional writer.? Nor had she dreamed that one night while seated in R J Reynolds Tobacco Company’s box seats at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the top fifty professional women tennis players of the world would be presented with warm-up suits she and her company had designed and manufactured.
JB believes that all things are possible, that without dreams, nothing is. ?She has been writing for more than twenty years, and mentored by many gifted friends. She has contributed to writer’s magazines, as well as a work of non-fiction by Nikoo McGoldrick and James A. McGoldrick entitled Marriage of Minds; Collaborative Fiction Writing. Currently, she is working on another novel entitled, Shug. Some of her short stories appear online in Yesterday’s Magazette.
She lives with her husband, Hugh, in Sarasota, Florida.? They enjoy family get-togethers, target shooting, golf and fishing, and cruising with friends. |
