Jill McDowell was born in Canada, spent 50 years in Southern California and—hoping to see rain once more before she dies—has settled in the Pacific Northwest. The weather has not disappointed. During her freshman year at the University of Washington she performed on stage at the Showboat Theater; toured with a Shakespearean production directed by Duncan Ross, a noteworthy figure with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School; and worked as an on-camera announcer at the local Seattle PBS channel. More recently, in her role as a grandmother presenting a plateful of cookies to megastar Drake—part of a skit the pair performed prior to a nationally telecast NBA Awards show—she, at the pinnacle of fame, chose to give up her barely-established career as a commercial actor. She likewise ended her partially successful attempt at becoming the oldest living voiceover actor in Southern California where she voiced a 45-year-old elephant—typecasting at its best. During her half century in the workforce, she toiled as a publicity director at a San Francisco TV station; a medical transcriptionist for physicians whose speech was often more difficult to decode than their handwriting; a government employee; and as a starving artist with Peaceable Beasts, her own art-rubber-stamp company. She spent two years (1995-1996) teaching English at Moscow State University as well as at the Japanese Embassy School in Moscow, thereby affording her a tri-cultural experience. Armed with a 100-year-old map and the exceptional navigational skills of a personable driver, she found her way to Norka, the tiny Russian village where her ancestors lived from 1763 to 1900. She taught English as a Second Language (ESL) for 35 years, and recently retired from Glendale Community College in Southern California, where she was an assistant adjunct ESL professor. In addition to the Czech Republic and Russia, she has also travelled to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Belarus; Finland, France, Germany, Italy and England; and to most of the provinces in Canada. When not writing, she enjoys classical music. Mozart—whose beautifully maintained piano she saw and admired in Prague—remains her favorite composer.
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