Jerilyn Watson

Facing a tear-gas-hurling mob in Italy. Getting boosted over shrubbery and an excited, pushing crowd to record the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Strolling down Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, CA., where clothing and props testify to their one-time presence on Hollywood's big screen.

These are some moments from the writing life of Jerilyn Watson, author of "Sorrow Street," a novel of beauty, passion and crime on the shadowed streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, just before the 2016 Olympic Games.

Before Watson was a novelist, she was a journalist.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, she wrote for a Chicago metropolitan daily newspaper and taught journalism at Northwestern University, her alma mater. Later she moved with her husband and two sons to the Washington, D.C. area, where she wrote free-lance journalism and reported for an international news operation.

Jerilyn Watson is the author of a nonfiction book, "Welcome to Bedlam," and fictional short stories published in Canadian literary magazines. Her Christmas script for children, "Angelina's Dress," has been broadcast in many countries and translated into several languages.