Darkness and Light

Nancy Jo Allen was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and moved to Wisconsin where she spent thirty-four years owning and operating a few businesses of her own before closing one to work with her husband in another business as vice-president, production manager and department head. It was in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where Allen earned a baccalaureate, majoring in English Literature with a double minor in creative writing and theatre. She was inducted as a member of Sigma Gamma Zeta II honor society in her undergraduate years and was the recipient of the Clara B. Small Scholarship.  Allen divorced in 2005 and was accepted to a graduate program through Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Writing degree with the emphasis on playwriting. She was a student editor for The Louisville Review and won first place in a Metroversity short fiction contest while attending the graduate program. Allen’s graduate creative thesis was read by both