Jayne Hitchcock

Author of Ghosts of Okinawa, Iwo Jima: A Retrospective and Torment

Jayne A. Hitchcock has been a writer at heart since childhood. She says she seemed to always have been writing something, whether it was poems in her diaries, plays during elementary school, as editor of her junior and high school newspapers in Oxnard, California or her year's stint as a weekly student columnist for the Oxnard Press-Courier. After high school, Jayne entered the world of advertising as a copywriter in New England. She then owned a successful advertising agency for three years before moving back to California in 1990 with her Marine husband, Christopher. She was Assistant Creative Director at the number one advertising agency in Orange County, California for two years.

When Jayne moved to Okinawa, Japan with her husband in 1992, she finally got the chance to do what she wanted most: concentrate on her first passion of "real" writing. As Assistant Editor of the weekly newspaper Japan Update for three years, Jayne covered human interest and feature articles and honed her skills as a photographer. Jayne also collaborated with the Bank of the Ryukyus International Foundation in 1992 on two books -- Okinawa Tour Guide and Folktales of Okinawa (both went into second printings and sold out within months). The bank graciously provided the Japanese text for her first children's book, Gil The Gecko, self-published in June of 1995 (it sold out within two weeks). Jayne also teamed up with Clyde "Bones" Rathbone in 1994 to produce the paperback novel Torment.

In June of 1995, Jayne took some ghost stories she had collected and published The Ghosts of Okinawa, freelanced articles for local newspapers,and contributed articles and photos for the 1995 50th Commemoration Issue of the Exploring Okinawa Travel Guide.

After Jayne returned to the United States in July of 1995, she self-published Iwo Jima -- A Retrospective five months later, and published the second edition of The Ghosts of Okinawa in September of 1996.

Jayne won Grand Prize in Quill's Showcase Your Talent contest in September 1996 for Gil The Gecko, received Certificates of Merit from the Writer's Digest 1995 National Self-Publishing Awards for Gil The Gecko and Torment, won two awards in the Writer's Digest Magazine Writing Competition and is a member of the USMC Combat Correspondent's Association (USMCCCA), 3D Marine Division Association, CAMP (Council on America's Military Past) and National Talk Show Guest Registry.

Currently, Jayne has contributed articles to several print and and online magazines including BIBLIO, ATHENA and Mangajin. She is a Teaching Assistant at the University of Maryland University College for computer-related courses, where she is also a regular speaker about "Privacy and Protection on the Internet," in relation to her recent experiences with a Cyberstalker. Half of her speaking fees go directly to the H.E.L.P. Fund to help defray her legal expenses against her cyberstalker, which are mounting.

Jayne doesn't want to let the bad guy win this one - so please help out if you can.