Sally J Jardine was raised in the south Chicago suburb of Tinley Park. She was sent to Catholic grade school. There she became interested in the strange and exotic life of the sisters who taught her. She joined them in their convent life when she was fourteen years old, beginning her religious formation with the goal of becoming a professed sister. By the age of twenty-one, she decided that she must leave this life and return to "the world." She married, had one son, and moved to Junction City, Kansas where she became a bookkeeper and eventually a Kansas State University instructor in English and Creative Writing. She spends her free time reading, playing the piano, volunteering with the Arts Council and writing a biweekly column on art for the local newspaper