About Gretchen

After her youngest child began kindergarten, Gretchen Schrock Jacobson decided to pursue a lifelong dream and write a novel. She quickly discovered that writing fiction was much more enjoyable than the academic papers she wrote in her past life as a political scientist. Unlike raw data, the characters can be manipulated (if they allow it, of course). And she got to incorporate her love of history!

 

Her first novel, Silent Are the Gallows, is based on the life of her 9th-great-grandmother Alice Clarke Bishop, the only woman executed in Plymouth Colony.

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A Pittsburgh native, Gretchen has spent most of her life in Pennsylvania---except for brief stays in France and Washington, D.C. She now calls State College home with her husband and three children.

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She has a B.A. in International Relations and French from Bucknell University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Penn State University, where she was an instructor for several years. Her published research focused on nationalism and international conflict.

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She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Women Fiction Writers Association, and Pennwriters.

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When she isn't researching some minor historical detail, typing furiously at her keyboard, or plotting a character's next obstacle, Gretchen is either hunched over her latest read, lifting weights in the basement, or cuddling on the couch with her dog Pete or her cat Lu.