Mitchard's writing career began when she returned to Chicago when her mother was dying of cancer, reports Lori Robertson in the American Journalistic Review. She began writing for a chain of Chicago weeklies, continuing at the Madison Capital Times, and then at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Here she eventually became a feature writer.

Her first book was an autobiographical account of her and her husband's struggle with infertility. The 1985 book is entitled Mother Less Child: The Love Story of a Family.

The Deep End of the Ocean is Jacquelyn Mitchard's first novel. Written soon after the death of her husband, the novel is her salvation, giving her the income to maintain her children and to continue her writing career. Robertson describes Mitchard's motivation by quoting Milwaukee Journal Sentinel TV critic Joanne Weintraub: "She was able to use this tragedy to motivate her to work harder than...