Joshilyn Jackson (born February 27, 1968) is an American author.
Jackson was born in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. She graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in Pensacola, Florida, in 1986.
She attended several colleges before getting a two-year degree from Georgia Perimeter College and a BA in English literature from Georgia State University. She received an MA in creative writing from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1997.
Before starting her writing career, Jackson was an actor.
Jackson writes novels primarily in the thriller and Southern fiction genres, including A Grown-Up Kind of Pretty; Backseat Saints; The Girl Who Stopped Swimming; Between, Georgia; Gods in Alabama; Someone Else's Love Story; The Opposite of Everyone; The Almost Sisters; Never Have I Ever; Mother May I; and With My Little Eye. She has also written the novella My Own Miraculous. Jackson describes her writing style as "weirdo fiction" with a Southern Gothic influence and dark humor.
Jackson is a board member of Reforming Arts, a nonprofit organization which provides liberal arts education to women in Georgia prisons. She volunteer teaches creative writing classes at Arrendale State Prison.