She has been interested in writing since childhood and received her first rejection at the age of nine from Boys Life for a short story about a boy who dies leaving his dog distraught. After that experience, she confined her writing to keeping a journal. "As much as I love to write, I could never figure out how people made a career out of it," she says, but she never abandoned the idea, and five years ago she had an epiphany; "I realized that if I was ever going to do it, I had to do it now."

Jackie, a bright, passionately liberal woman, comes from an old Dutch family. She grew up in Lebanon N.J., a rural area with rolling farmland settled by the Dutch that has changed relatively little since the 18th century. "Everyone I grew up with was connected in one way or another," she says.

In this insular community, her mother, a first generation Hungarian, appeared exotic and artistic. She was a dealer in antiques, a costume designer for the ballet, had her own column in the local paper, and wrote, produced and directed musicals for local charities. She exposed Jackie to the larger world while her father, a builder, taught her life principles he learned from working with his hands.

Lebanon, which is two hours from New York, is a bedroom community. Her parents' diverse circle of friends included a professional dancer who encouraged Jackie to take ballet lessons. Following her advice, she studied at the Metropolitan Opera Ballet School in the city and was among the talented dancers invited to study full time. Jackie was ready to commit to a life of dance but her parents felt she should go to college.

After a degree in French literature from Windham College in Vermont, Jackie was uncertain what direction to take. A summer job waitressing in Nantucket where she became pals with a number of med students studying in Liege, Belgium led indirectly to her decision to become a doctor. "I went to Europe after that summer and did a bike tour using their place as home base. There were medical journals about. I found them fascinating."

Back to school for two years of pre-med then two years at Tufts Medical School and a transfer to Mt. Sinai where she specialized in internal medicine followed. Then came two years of clinical rotations, with a hematology fellowship and three years as a resident, all at Mt. Sinai Hospital. In the meantime she had gotten married, had a child then separated, which meant she was putting in 110 hours a week of hospital rounds as a young single mother, quite a challenge. The hours working in private practice that followed were demanding as well. She left for a short time to spend time with her son, then took a job with Montifiore Hospital heading up their employee health service.

Four years later Jackie accepted a position at New York Hospital running their occupational health service. "It was on a much larger scale and needed a lot of fixing," she relates. With a good bit of reorganizing she grew her department into one of the most respected in the metropolitan region, and was responsible for overseeing the New York State public health requirements of 30,000 hospital personnel.

In 2000 she married Eric Vorenkamp, a photographer and Vice President of Insurance for N.Y. Presbyterian Hospital, and they purchased a home in Palisades in 2003. She soon joined the staff of 10964. “10964 has been incredibly important to me. Writing articles gave me good feedback and the courage to move forward.” She also joined a Rockland Center for the Arts writing workshop five years ago run by the poet Sally Lipton Derringer. “It’s an extraordinary, diverse, supportive group. I was blown away by how talented everyone is.” Jackie quickly discovered the elements of her craft, how to write narrative, dialogue, time lines and much more. A summer course at the prestigious Iowa Workshop last year brought her to a teacher who encouraged her to go for a MFA in creative writing.

“I had always thought my BA in French Lit was useless and it was for decades, but when I applied to MFA programs, all of a sudden it was crucial to giving me some credibility and a credential in literary matters, so you never know what will come in handy or when.” She has been accepted at Sarah Lawrence and starts her master’s classes in the fall with the support of her husband Eric and her son Ezra who finishes his doctorate in engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle in November.

In the meantime, this past summer she attended a four-week advanced fiction workshop at the 92nd Street Y taught by Rivka Galchen, then spent three weeks in Scotland writing with no distractions. She has started sending out short stories again and is working on a novel. “I have no regrets,” Jackie says. “I’m excited and terrified. I’ll never be a dancer but I can now be an artist in a different form. You only have one life to live; no matter how difficult or even impossible it might seem to do something you have dreamed of, you have to find a way to do it.”