Jacqueline Anne 'Jackie' French (born 1 December 1953) is an award-winning Australian author of children's fiction, and books on gardening. She was born in Sydney and grew up in Brisbane, but moved to the bush in her early twenties. She is a keen gardener and appeared on the TV series Burke's Backyard. She has written well over a hundred books. Jackie lives in New South Wales, near the small town of Braidwood at Araluen. She began writing when she was 30, in a desperate attempt to get enough money together to register her car. At the time, she was living in a tin shed with a black snake named Gladys and a wombat named Smudge. A hundred and thirty plus books later, she is still writing. She is one of Australia's most popular children's writers.

Jackie owns a flourishing organic farm in southern New South Wales. She practises what she preaches and has become one of Australia's foremost experts on organic gardening, through her regular television and radio appearances, as well as her 'Season By Season' column in Earth Garden magazine. She is also an award-winning children's author and has written more than 30 books on pest control, chooks, self-sufficiency, useful plants and other ways of growing things.