Jackie Sheckler Finch wrote her first cruise story in 1976 aboard the inaugural voyage of the Mississippi Queen. She has been writing about cruises ever since. Jackie also has been a newspaper reporter in Ohio, Massachusetts and Indiana since 1978 and has been writing for The Herald-Times in her Hoosier hometown of Bloomington since 1989. Sharing her love of travel, she has written 25 travel guidebooks for Globe Pequot Press. A member of The Society of American Travel Writers and Midwest Travel Journalists Association, Jackie has been named the MTJA Mark Twain Travel Writer of the Year a record six times, most recently in 2023. One of her greatest joys is boarding a ship to discover what lies around the next river bend or beyond the ocean horizon.