About Jody
Jody Ewing was born and raised in Onawa, Iowa, the second of five children born to Don and Hope (Archer) Ewing in less than five years.
She began writing at age eight, both penning and illustrating her dog-napping short story "The Mystery of Kalo's Disappearance," for her four siblings to read and critique.
She spent much of her childhood traveling across the U.S. with her father -- an ATA Hall of Fame champion trapshooter -- and brother Brett, both of whom broke world records with their sharpshooting skills. Jody often tagged along, carrying shells or lugging her father's 12-gauge shotgun and chronicling each day's events in her daily journal.
Encouraged during junior high by West Monona English teacher Jerry Laffey, Jody had classmates reading and writing book reports on her western novel "Gentry," an epic-length story about an early frontier town's struggle for unity despite countless setbacks and Mother Nature's wrath. By the time she finished high school she'd completed three full-length novels, two stage plays and numerous short stories, none of which she submitted for publication.
In 1988, Jody signed on as a freelance correspondent for The Sioux City (IA) Journal, writing regular features for the Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota "Siouxland" region until relocating to northern California in early 1991. Her first book "One Way: Bumps and Detours on the Road to Adulthood" (a collection of essays on childhood and growing up), was published in 1992 by R&E Publishers. While living in California, Jody's weekly newspaper column From Jody's Journal began running in northern California newspapers as well as some Iowa and Illinois weeklies. She has since had more than 400 feature stories published, completed two more novels and penned six screenplays, including a commissioned adaptation of another author's novel that first was adapted for a CBS After School Special by "The Waltons" writer and producer, Earl Hamner, Jr.
As a child, Jody imagined she'd grow up and become a famous novelist living in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Instead, she returned with her family to western Iowa in 1995, where a sequence of more detours led her down roads few others have a chance to travel or are willing to explore. She immersed herself in raising a special needs son, became politically active, worked as a staff writer with the alternative newsweekly Weekender, and, when her son's problems resurfaced and began taking her away from work, went back to freelance status to accommodate her son's needs while writing from her home office.
Shortly thereafter, and based on a suggestion from then-Weekender editor Thomas Ritchie, Jody began researching and writing a cold case series on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases in the Sioux City area. She transferred her college credits from University of Iowa to Iowa State University in order to finish her Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree and add a Criminal Justice Studies minor, ran for the Iowa legislature, bought a 100-year-old home with an enigmatic past, and took in and cared for a family friend with Parkinson's Disease ... along with his hyperactive 100-pound Chesapeake Retriever, Hagan, and his Pilot-to-Bombardier-obsessed African Grey parrot, Clyde.
With painstaking attention to dialog and details, Jody meticulously documented everything in her daily journal just as she'd done since childhood. In December 2005 she launched the Iowa Cold Cases website and is (as time permits) compiling similar information for 47 other states. Her current writing projects, in various stages from outlines to final edits, illustrate a deeply lived-in life reflecting themes most important to the writer: family, courage, loyalty, faith, forgiveness, and community.
Her book One Way recently went back into print with Ultramarine Publishing, a New York publisher who keeps in print serious works by American writers. Her Amazon.com Short -- "Pull" -- was published in January 2006 and made the Top 10 List in Literature and Fiction two days after publication.
Jody is the mother of three grown children and two grandchildren. Her oldest son Bill (a computer analyst/programmer) lives in Fargo, ND, with his wife Jen and their sons Adam and Thomas. Her daughter Jennifer -- who recently relocated to Fargo -- works as a full-time substitute paraprofessional for the Fargo School District. Jody's youngest son Rhett -- despite a lifelong battle with Asperger's Syndrome -- beat all odds and completed high school early, graduated in May '07 and began distance education classes with Iowa State. He withdrew from his studies after his grandfather's death, and will begin coursework with Wayne State College (NE) this year. He plans to become a theoretical physicist.
Jody remains extremely close to her mother and four siblings, all of whom now reside in the same western Iowa town where they grew up. Jody shares her century old home with longtime partner Dennis and son Rhett, along with their four family pets -- dogs Cocoa, Bear and Hagan, and Clyde the African Grey Pilot-to-Bombardier! fighter pilot parrot.