Jan Cleere is the author of five award-winning books detailing the lives of those who first settled in the desert southwest. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Arizona State University West with a degree in American Studies, a Roads Scholar with Arizona Humanities, and serves on the Coordinating Council of the Arizona Women's Heritage Trail, an organization dedicated to linking women's history to historic sites throughout the state. She also writes a monthly column for Tucson's Arizona Daily Star newspaper, "Western Women." Her work appears in regional and national publications. Jan lives with her husband under the shadow of Tucson's Santa Catalina Mountains.