Jancís M. Andrews was born in Bartram Place, a pit village in Northumbria, England, in 1934. At fourteen she ran away from a violent home life, and when apprehended by the police, refused to return to school. She was ordered to Reform School. Later, this was altered to one year's probation, which included an order that she not venture outside a designated area of five square miles. Joining the Women's Royal Naval Service at the age of eighteen, she served as a radio operator in Malta, on the staff of Lord Louis Mountbatten. In 1966 she emigrated to Canada with her husband, son and daughter, and, at the age of thirty-six, enrolled in grade nine of the Ontario Adult Education Correspondence Courses. The family moved to West Vancouver in 1971, where she obtained a B.F.A. degree from the University of British Columbia.

Her first volume of short stories is from Ronsdale and is entitled Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair (1992). Her second volume of stories is entitled Walkingon Water. She has won several awards for her writing. She now lives in Sechelt, B.C.