Writing Military Fiction

Kathleen Toomey Jabs serves as the Special Assistant to the President for Military and Veteran Affairs at William & Mary. She has published a novel, Black Wings; several award-winning short stories; and numerous articles in commercial magazines, literary journals and newspapers. Her second novel is out for review.

Kathleen graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in one of the first classes to include women, earning a Bachelor of Science in English with minors in Russian and Engineering. Her military career included service in Japan, Hawaii, Panama, the Pentagon, and military installations along the East Coast.

Concurrent with her Navy work, Kathleen earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from George Mason University. Her short stories have won awards and appeared in literary and national publications, including Good Housekeeping; Hayden’s Ferry Review; Other Voices; The Baltimore Review; Collateral; and Proud to Be: Writing by American Warriors; and other journals. Her story, “Safekeeping,” was selected for the Random House Operation Homecoming anthology and the NPR Selected Shorts program. A four-time fellow at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, she published “Black Wings,” a novel, with Fuze Publishing in 2011. Kathleen lives with her husband in Virginia. They have two adult children.