What You’ll Discover about What It’s Like for a Feminist Judge to Write Her Memoir in Midlife:
- Why Jackie says her career changes were never rational decisions, but instincts she learned to trust.
- How a chance encounter with poets at a writers’ conference redirected her entire creative path.
- Why Jackie saw poetry and public service as incompatible for years, and what changed her mind.
- How Jackie managed the financial risk of leaving a steady judicial salary for writing.
- Why Jackie’s feminist reputation as a judge drew accusations of bias, and how those claims played out.
- How Jackie found the right structure for her memoir after decades of writing it on and off.
- Why Jackie believes retirement expanded her world instead of shrinking it.
- How Jackie balances candor about her failures with pride in her accomplishments.
Welcome to another episode of the Women in the Middle® Podcast!
Today’s guest did something unexpected when she chose to leave her judgeship and follow a new direction in poetry. Her name is Jacqueline St. Joan.
Jackie is a retired lawyer, judge, and law professor, as well as an early feminist activist, community organizer, memoirist and novelist whose path to the bench was anything but planned.
She started her career as a secretary, went to law school at 28 as a divorced mother of two, and ended up representing domestic violence survivors before becoming the first judge in Denver’s centralized protection order court. Her outspoken feminism brought public scrutiny though her rulings were consistently upheld and she was voted back into office.
Her shift away from law began after her father’s death, when she started writing about their complicated relationship. A trip to a writers’ conference in Aspen turned that project into a lifelong pull toward poetry, then fiction. Jackie stepped down from the bench gradually, working part-time as a mediator and law professor to stay financially stable while building a writing career.
Her memoir, Your Verdict: A Judge’s Reckoning with Law and Loss, (Golden Antelope Press) was recently published. Jackie is also the author of two novels, My Sisters Made of Light and The Shawl of Midnight. Jackie served as a Denver County Judge from 1987-1994. Jackie was also recently inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.
Please enjoy this fascinating interview!
Featured in this Episode
- Book a Next Chapter Direction Session: talktosuzy.com
Connect with Jacqueline St. Joan
Website:
- Www.jacquelinestjoan.com
- My Memoir: Your Verdict: A Judge’s Reckoning with Law and Loss https://www.amazon.com/Your-Verdict-Judges-Reckoning-Loss/dp/1967986010
- Bookshelf.org
- Free Substack: https://substack.com/@jackiestjoan
- Writing All The Way to the End: https://jackiestjoan.substack.com/
Connect with Suzy
Follow Suzy on Substack: https://substack.com/@womeninthemiddle
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