Jessica Owers is an award-winning Australian author and journalist. In 2011, and to great acclaim, she published her debut work of non-fiction, Peter Pan: The Forgotten Story of Phar Lap’s Successor, which earned the Bill Whittaker Award for Best Australian Racing Book. In 2013 she was a co-recipient of the award with the release of her second book, Shannon, and in October 2025 she released her long-awaited third book, Magic Millions: The Rise, Fall and Extraordinary Rise of an Iconic Australian Company. Like her previous two books, Magic Millions is a shortlisted finalist for the 2026 Bill Whitaker Award.
Today, Jessica is a Sydney-based journalist with The Land, the fabled ‘bible of the bush’, which has published continually since 1911. Over the last 17 years Jess has built a writing reputation built on craft and integrity in journalism. Her byline has been prominent in The Straight, TDN AusNZ, Thoroughbred Racing Commentary, at Magic Millions and HIA (Housing Industry Australia), as well as in the Inglis, Aushorse and Waikato Stud magazines, and The Australian, Outback magazine and Practical Parenting. Her commitment to deadlines and work ethic have made her a lucrative writer for hire.
In 2023, Jessica was one of three finalists in the national Kennedy Awards’ Rod Allen Award for Racing Writer of the Year, and in January 2026 she was one of two finalists for the NSW/ACT Racing Woman of the Year Award.
published work
Jessica’s work has been both award-winning and extensively published in specialist industry fields. From rural and ag news to human interest features, biographies and racing news, she has written across many fields. She has interviewed the likes of Hedley Thomas, Jason Scott, Dr Aman Ashaab, Katie Page and Gerry Harvey, John Singleton, Lee Freedman, Joseph O’Brien, Daniel MacPherson, and many more. Click the button to read some of Jessica’s vast portfolio of printed and online work.
about jessica
Jessica was born in Cork and emigrated to Australia when less than a year old. From then until the age of 10, she grew up in Sydney with a typical Aussie childhood spent at the beach and camping. She then relocated back to Ireland where she completed high school before moving to Scotland for five years. At the University of Stirling she completed a combined honours BSc. Environmental Science & Media across four years. Thereafter, she returned to Sydney. Jessica worked in subediting and staff-writer roles before going freelance. In 2011 she published the first of her three books, and her career has since been carved out of contract and freelance work for some of the leading industry mastheads in Australian racing. Today she is a rural journalist with The Land, one of thelongest-running print mastheads in New South Wales. All of this has been juggled with full-time motherhood. Julien was born in 2013 and Charlotte in 2016.
For Jessica, writing is a craft that goes beyond professional boundaries. Her favourite author is Charles W. Bean. She loves to kayak, has a boat licence and is an accomplished horsewoman. She has an Irish Setter called Fox, a ragdoll named Lexington, and her front garden is full of wild birds. She lives in Sydney’s east with Julien and Charlotte.
books
Despite a consistent career in journalism, Jessica is best known for her books, and the era-biographies of both Peter Pan and Shannon, and then Magic Millions in 2025,stand as the monuments of her professional life. Peter Pan was published in 2011 after six years of research, and it was an exciting new title for Random House, which threw its support behind this new female voice in horse racing. Peter Pan was award-winning and is still earning royalties to this day. The first print run, which featured beautifully coloured plates, is increasingly hard to come by, so much so that Singleton Public Library won’t allow its copy to be loaned out.
In 2013, Shannon was released as the second of this biography series. Set in the 1940s, it was a mature book with beautiful storytelling. The writing and research took less than two years as Jessica travelled to Los Angeles, Kentucky, Saratoga and the Hunter Valley to accurately recreate the life of this incredible war-era racehorse. Shannon was widely read as a worthy sequel and it proved a fascinating and accurate look into wartime Australia and post-war America, involving such names as Hollywood mogul Louis B. Meyer and champion racehorses Bernborough and Flight.
In October 2025, Jess released her third book with Penguin Random House. Magic Millions is the incredible, almost jaw-dropping story of the Gold Coast thoroughbred auction house.