Jan Ellison

Jan Ellison (born January 17, 1966) is an American novelist, philanthropist and the wife of Roblox CEO David Baszucki. After leaving college for a year, she travelled to Europe where she took notes. In 2007, she won a O'Henry prize after writing her first published short story The Company of Men. In 2015, she wrote her first novel A Small Indiscretion, which got featured on news outlets such as USA Today.

Jan Ellison was born on January 17, 1966 in San Jose, California and grew up in Los Angeles.^[1] Her father Todd Ellison, known also as E.T. Ellison, was a novelist and musician who recorded music, and wrote fantasy novels. He was treated with chemotherapy in 2020. Her mother was a teacher at an elementary school.^[2][3] Her brother Steve Ellison is a brewer and production manager for a company called Boundary Bay Brewery.^[4]

Ellison worked as a cook for making french fries at a fast food restaurant growing up despite her family's struggles. She was then moved to work as a cash register.^[5]

Ellison first went to Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, a private catholic school.^[6]

Ellison graduated from Stanford University with a undergraduate degree. She then went to San Francisco State University, where she got a Master of Fine Arts, and finally went to the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a master's degree in Journalism.^[7]

At 19, Ellison left college for a year and travelled to Europe where she stayed in Paris for one year. Afterwards, she moved to London and began to work in an office. Eventually, Ellison moved to Hawaii, Australia and across Southeast Asia, where she stayed for two years.^[8][9][3]

Ellison began working as a waitress and a typist, and then as a Silicon Valley marketing executive in the 1990's.^[10][11][12] During this time, she began to write notes in her Journals as she travelled.^[3]

Ellison began blogging in 2003 on the blogsite Murderati, where she published blogs and books.^[13] Ellison wrote her first short story The Company of Men sometime in 2007. She then submitted to 27 different literary journals before finally getting accepted.^[6] Afterwards, she won an O'Henry Prize for the story.^[14]

Ellison took some of the notes she journaled in her journals and began to work on A Small Indiscretion. During production of the book, she took an 18 month break, where she began to write her second novel The Safest City, which was reported to have 600 pages. The novel was set in Silicon Valley in 2011.^[15]

In January 2015,^[16] she published her novel A Small Indiscretion, which follows a 19 year old girl named Annie Black piecing together her past life after a visit from a photographer which depicted Annie in a car crash. The book is deemed as a suspense novel.^[14][17]

Her book was featured as a recommended book in the San Francisco Chronicle,^[18] was reviewed and featured on USA Today as one of the books of the week,^[19][20] and her books were sold in stores such as Kepler’s Books.^[11][21]

Ellison lives in Portola Valley, California. In 2005, she married Roblox CEO David Baszucki after meeting at Stanford University, and together had 4 children.^[21][22] She co-founded The Baszucki group alongside her husband in 2021, where she became the president of the group.^[23] She currently funds neuropsychiatric research.^[10][24] She founded the organization Metabolic Mind to provide for education after one of her sons was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 19.^[25][26]

• Metabolic Mind website