Me & The Kiwi
We met on a plane. Two weeks later, we jumped in a truck together and never looked back. Five years on, we’re still traveling this life together—sharing adventures, supporting dreams, and proving that the best journeys start with a leap of faith and the right co-pilot.
The Writer
I believe shelter isn’t always a place—sometimes it’s a person, and sometimes it’s the journey itself. An award-winning writer (The Noise Beneath the Apple, Book of the Year 2013), I’ve contributed to Fodor’s Travel, GoNomad, and Rova, and work as a yogi and late-life model. My grandfather was Hard Ball Harry, a 1930s semi-pro baseball pitcher who taught me about life through summer nights listening to games on a transistor radio. I met a New Zealand helicopter pilot on a plane five years ago, jumped in a truck with him two weeks later, and we’re still going. I work with the SF Giants Spring Training camp, and am fundraising for a VW bus to take the stories on the road.
The Kiwi
He’s a helicopter pilot from New Zealand—my partner, my biggest supporter, and the reason this creative life is possible. His steadiness gives me wings, and together we’re building something extraordinary.
Releasing January 15, 2025
Shelter in Motion:
Essays from a Bohemian Life
Shelter in Motion is a collection of twenty-two award-winning essays that span a life lived deliberately off the beaten path—from a white childhood on an Indian Reservation to van life during a pandemic, from selling Obama condoms in Times Square to taking a six-day Greyhound ride to mend a broken heart.
With sharp wit and unflinching honesty, Heather Jacks invites readers into the moments that shaped her: a ten-year-old watching her friend’s home burn, summer nights listening to baseball with her grandfather, dancing with Aboriginals under the Australian stars at sixteen, and being rescued by a tribal councilman named Bruce when the world shut down in 2020.
These bite-sized stories explore what it means to be an outsider, to reinvent yourself at midlife, and to find unexpected kindness in the most unlikely places. Whether she’s embracing her “inner gamey-ness” on a broken-down Greyhound, discovering she’s “like the dreams of the gods” in the Outback, or learning that sometimes the best shelter is motion itself, Jacks reminds us that the strangers we meet often become the family we need.
Perfect for a train ride, a plane trip, or any moment when you need a reminder that the bohemian path—while rarely easy—is always worth taking.
For anyone who has ever felt too different, too free-spirited, or too “interesting,” this collection is a love letter to the long way home, the unlikely friendships, and the courage it takes to keep moving forward.
Here are Some
Baseball & Beyond
Read: One Last Time To Boston
Baseball & Beyond
I’m the granddaughter of Hard Ball Harry, a Depression-era semi-pro pitcher who was headed to the minor leagues—and maybe Fenway—until Uncle Sam called. He never made it to Boston, but he taught me everything about life through summer nights listening to Red Sox games on a transistor radio.
“Listening is how you feel the game—and baseball, like life, is meant to be felt.”
For six summers, I waited by my grandparents’ mailbox for a tall man with a dented lunch box. “Well, well, well, Little Birdie, where are we going tonight?” And I’d shout: Boston! Grandpa taught me that baseball mirrors life—patience, perseverance, teamwork, and knowing that sometimes you do everything right and still lose.
Now I work with SF Giants Spring Training camp, carrying his lessons with me. These are stories about hickory bats, transistor radios, and the sound that still brings tears to my eyes: leather meeting ball.