Jacqueline Kent is a biographer, book editor, and literary critic who was born in Sydney and grew up there and in Adelaide. A Certain Style, her biography of pioneering book editor Beatrice Davis, won the 2002 National Biography Award and the Nita B. Kibble Award, and was shortlisted for six other prizes. Her memoir Beyond Words was shortlisted for the National Biography Award in 2019. She is the author of The Making of Julia Gillard, the only full biography of Australia’s first and only woman prime minister. Other biographies include An Exacting Heart, the story of pianist and social activist Hephzibah Menuhin, and Vida: A Woman for Our Time, about pioneering Australian suffragist Vida Goldstein. Her most recent book is Bonjour, Mademoiselle! April Ashley and the Pursuit of a Lovely Life, published in September, 2024.

She has written young adult fiction and contributes to Australian Book Review and the Australian Dictionary of Biography. She holds a Doctorate of Creative Arts from the University of Technology, Sydney.