Jean Rae Baxter (née Fox) was born in Toronto but grew up in Hamilton. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from the University of Toronto and a B.Ed degree from Queen’s. She is an ex-copywriter and ex-teacher. Married to a Queen’s University English professor, she lived for many years in the Kingston area. Following her return to Hamilton in 1996, she kept the promise she had made to herself and began to write in earnest. As Co-chair of the Arts Hamilton Literary Advisory Committee and one of the organizers of the LiT LiVe Reading Series, Baxter was an active member of Hamilton’s writing community. In 2016 she returned to Kingston, where she currently lives. She has conducted a series of memoir writing workshops for seniors, titled "Telling Your Story".  "The Knotted Rope,"  the sixth and final novel in the Y/A "Forging  Nation" series, published by Ronsdale Press, was released in February 2022.