CJ Henderson

CJ Henderson was raised in the small towns of Farmington and Rivesville, West Virginia. High points in her early life were long trips to visit family who lived in remote areas of Appalachia. Over time, this environment became as familiar to her as her own modern home, and gradually she was introduced to many families whose homes in the outback were scattered miles apart.

A typical visit included hours of walking with a group of friends and cousins from house to house, looking for something to do. In those years, there were no televisions or telephones to keep the girls occupied, just like young people everywhere, the group invented games and told tales. Just as she had observed her father doing for many years, CJ kept her companions entertained for hours with her stories, in which she combined her own imagination with real-life events that played out in the isolated and poverty-stricken mountain culture.

CJ married just out of high school and lived on a farm, putting off her longing to write

and attend college. She raised two sons, and as they matured, she attended night school at Fairmont State College, and later at Parkersburg Community College. Years later her position as a land agent for Equitable Gas Company took her to even more remote and isolated regions where she had spent time as a child. She found nothing had changed. The impoverished still had no higher education available to them. Also, they lived without electricity, inside plumbing, telephones, television, and other conveniences. This renewed knowledge of their extraordinary lifestyle fueled her desire to create stories about that parallel world of people who live alongside us but remain separate at the same time.

After she resigned from her job with the utility company, CJ moved to the West Coast and spent three years writing and setting the groundwork for the six novels in The Cabin Series. She then returned to West Virginia and, drawing on her experience as a realtor and as a land acquisition agent, she opened her own real estate company, which she continues to operate. She also continues to devote herself to writing and publishing her novels.

CJ’s life and work led up to the creation of The Cabin Series.