About Jenny

As a tiny girl, Jenny Fratzke could recite the words of her favorite stories from memory. She lifted the adventures of her mind toward the blue sky that would someday offer adventure, freedom, and flight as a Pan American Stewardess and pilot.

Later, Jenny Fratzke would read the stories of Flannery O’Connor, Ernest Hemingway, Guideposts, E. B. White, and weave in her own stories about flying and hunting and horseback riding. Before using the tools of artificial intelligence, she would sit next to her dogs in a lawn chair in the center of a green pasture; horses and mules grazed near her feet. There, she would read one of her latest adventures and lift her words, once again, high into the air as an offering.

Jenny Fratzke was born in Bend, Oregon, where her father used to take her family camping and fishing along the Deschutes River. Later, they moved to Alki Beach, West Seattle, where she fell in love with sand, sea, and starfish.
Compared to Bend and Alki Beach, Yakima Valley High School was a dusty, sagebrush-filled landscape. Jenny Fratzke longed to see the mountains or water of her childhood once again. When she read the short stories of Raymond Carver, she learned Carver lived in Yakima from 1950 to 1956, and how his Yakima experience inspired his story, “The Summer Steelhead” and later became “Nobody Said Anything” in 1973. Like Carver, Jenny Fratzke felt inspired to follow her dreams; she believed that overcoming any obstacle was possible.

After college, Jenny Fratzke ran away from Yakima and country life, and toward blue skies and the freedom of the air. She worked as a Pan American Stewardess, reaching for the sky, clouds, and sun. Later, she worked as a bush pilot in Alaska, a rancher in Montana. Currently, Jenny Fratzke loves reading and writing and living close to wilderness areas. She enjoys spending special moments in nature with her husband of over 40 years.