Jackie was born Sydney in 1953, grew up in Brisbane, graduated from the University of Queensland and moved to her present home in the New South Wales bush in her early twenties. She and her husband and son live in a house made of stone from the creek, with a wombat named Pudge, a mob of larriken lyrebirds, a frequently drunk goanna, a rambling garden and a waterwheel that provides their power when it's too cloudy for the solar panels.