Jan Whiten was born in Bendigo, Victoria. Her early school years were spent at a tiny rural school with one room and one teacher for all grades. Jan is married with two sons. As a family they spent many happy hours sharing the magic of books together. Her love of reading children's books led Jan into the exciting world of writing her own stories for children. Chooky-Doodle-Doo is Jan's first commercially published book, and was short-listed for the 2014 Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards. It was inspired by the antics of Miss Milligan, one of her much-loved hens.