Jackie Diamond Hyman (born 1949) is an American author and former Associated Press reporter and columnist. She has published under the names Jacqueline Diamond, Jacqueline Topaz, Jacqueline Jade, and Jackie Hyman. She has written more than ninety novels in genres including romance, horror, fantasy and mystery.
Hyman was born in 1949 in Menard, Texas. She is the daughter of the late Maurice Hyman, M.D., former chief of psychiatry at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and ceramic sculptor Sylvia Hyman.
She graduated from Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts and received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to travel and write in Europe. After moving to Orange County, California, in 1972, Hyman worked as a reporter and editor for The Orange Coast Daily Pilot and as a copy editor for The Orange County Register. She worked as a reporter and editor the Associated Press (AP) in Los Angeles from 1980-1983, and continued to write theater-related articles for the AP until 1999. In 1993-1994, Hyman wrote a weekly television column for AP that was nationally distributed.
She is a two-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America's RITA Award and received a career achievement award from Romantic Times Book Club magazine. Her book publishers include Harlequin Enterprises Ltd, William Morrow, St. Martin's Press, Five Star Press, Walker and Company, DAW Books and Berkley Books.
Hyman was married in 1978 to Kurt Wilson and has two sons. She teaches short story, article and novel writing through Long Ridge Writers Group, and is the author of How to Write a Novel in One (Not-so-easy) Lesson. Since 2010, she has been reissuing her early novels, including Regency romances and mysteries, in digital editions. Hyman is a former national board member of Romance Writers of America and has also served on the board of the Orange County, California chapter.