Born in London and formerly educated in Wales, Jacalyn S Burke moved to the U.S. in 2002 to document the emerging Street Art scene in New York City. For the next fifteen years she worked as a tutor, a governess/nanny, an artist, a tech start up founder and a literary agent.

In 2007 she founded a parent hub, Baby Does NYC. It became a leading grassroots brand in the City and was sold in 2019.

In 2015, Praeger (now Bloomsbury) published Jacalyn’s non-fiction work, The Nanny Time Bomb – Navigating the Crisis in Child Care. The book was based upon Jacalyn’s experiences working for Manhattan’s 1% and was reviewed by the New York Times, in the ‘Wealth Matters’ weekly column (June 2016).

In 2016 Jacalyn worked as a literary agent representing clients in the juvenile markets: picture books, middle-grade and young adult.

During this time Jacalyn met with top editors at Penguin, Random House, Simon and Schuster, Candlewick Press, Holt, St Martins and Scholastic Books, and established cordial relationships with these editors.

Through her work as an artist she self-sponsored an immigration path, becoming a U.S. citizen in 2017.

In 2018 Jacalyn relocated to SW France to realize a long-held dream of writing fulltime. Along with her partner Kate, she began to renovate an 18th Century farmhouse and the land about it.

During this time she began two novels: The Custodians (Thriller/Horror) and Wall Street Diva (Commercial Women’s Fiction) as well as a non-fiction projects.

During the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, Jacalyn continued to write and all book projects were completed in the Fall of 2022.

Jacalyn is represented by Maryann Karinch at The Rudy Agency,