About the Author
Jillian Webster was born in Michigan in 1984, where she was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. After spending the majority of her youth struggling to conform with the religious sect, she finally chose to leave the church for good at nineteen years old. The Jehovah’s Witnesses warned her that she would never find what she was looking for, and then shunned (disfellowshipped) Jillian from the church. She was forbidden to speak to her mother, stepfather and siblings ever again.
This began an insatiable love affair with writing, soul-searching and traveling. At the age of twenty-six, Jillian put everything she owned in storage, quit her job, and traveled across the globe on her own in search of a life where she belonged.
This journey was chronicled in her first book, a coming-of-age memoir called Scared to Life, published in 2015.
The Weight of a Thousand Oceans is her first work of fiction, published June 2020.
Since leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jillian has obtained a degree (this is highly discouraged as a Jehovah's Witness) and a passport, traveled the world over, written two books, moved to a paradise island at the ends of the earth, and – as predicted by an old custodian who read her palm in Egypt – has gotten married “late in life” to her best friend.
Jillian now lives in New Zealand with her husband and their rescue dog, Biggie.
Despite staunch warnings otherwise, she has found the life she was always looking for.