J.L. Nicely spent her formative years growing up on military air force bases in England. Born to an American father and British mother, she is a dual national and spent time a large part of her childhood at her grandparent’s house on the outskirts of London. There she roamed the surrounding woods, parks, streams, and ponds of England. These quiet places, mystical and ancient, sparked her growing imagination, and the forest world of the Womara took seed.  

A testament to the visual world that she creates in her writing. Her first novel of the trilogy Unconquered Warrior  was a semi-finalist in the 2020 Screencraft Cinematic Book Writing Competition, a contest that celebrates great books with cinematic adaption potential.

She loves strong and empowered female characters and enjoys developing the dimension of her women warrior’s differences that embrace balance and strive for equality among their rival male clans while exploring  familiar genre tropes in a new skin. 

She currently lives on the Monterey Peninsula in California and is a graduate of the University of San Francisco. She is active in the local writing community, and when not writing, is an avid traveler and hiker.