Buzzy Jackson is an award-winning author, historian, editor, and speaker whose work explores wonder, memory, and the stories that survive us. She is the author of four books, including the Colorado Book Award-winning To Die Beautiful (published internationally as The Girl with the Red Hair).

Buzzy grew up in an extended family of readers and writers in Truckee, California and Missoula, Montana and now lives in Colorado. She is the proud mother of a son with great literary taste and the grateful daughter of the “de facto Mayor of Truckee,” Ruth J. Hall, and beloved cult mystery writer Jon A. Jackson.

Buzzy has a Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley and learned to DJ at UCLA. She is a voting member of the National Book Critics’ Circle. A keynote speaker for the 2026 Utah Humanities Book Festival and a presenter for Colorado Humanities, Buzzy has spent her career uncovering overlooked stories and helping audiences connect the past to the questions that matter most today. Her talks blend historical research, storytelling, humor, and insight, inviting audiences to think differently about creativity, courage, identity, and what gives life meaning.

Buzzy teaches writing through Denver’s Lighthouse Writers Workshop and online, and also works with writers one-on-one.

She is currently researching and writing a new historical novel set in Elizabethan England, about how medieval witch trials led to the overturning of Roe v. Wade (Dutton: 2027).

Contact: AskBuzzy at Gmail.com

Buzzy’s favorite quote about writing is from the poet Muriel Rukeyser:

The universe is made of stories,

not of atoms.

– Muriel Rukeyser, “The Speed of Darkness”