Jessica (Murdock) Whitmore is a high school special education teacher, a writer, and an adjunct instructor of English at Northeast Alabama Community College. She has been married since November 2006. Alex, her husband, is a CNC machinist. Her brother is a professor of biology at Jacksonville State University. He has a son, Connor, who is a bright little wonder in her life. Her father is the pastor of Ruhama Baptist Church, and her mother is the office manager at Henagar School.

Mrs. Whitmore received her A.A. from Northeast in 1999, and then went on to complete her B.A. in English at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Afterwards, she began working as a special education paraprofessional in DeKalb County schools, and then at Homewood High School in Birmingham as she worked on her M.A. at UAB. She has a concentration in creative writing under the mentorship of Dennis and Vicki Covington (authors of Salvation on Sand Mountain and Bird of Paradise, respectively). She has had a couple of short stories published in small literary and academic journals. Her writing style is very sparse and contains dark humor. Furthermore, she has a collection of short stories that will serve as her dissertation when she returns to UAB entitled, Tales from Firewatch Mountain.

She feels very excited and fulfilled to be starting her journey at NACC. The college is her first passion and dream. Furthermore, she looks forward to working with her students and colleagues, with whom she knows share the passion for further education.