Carolyn Jourdan’s memoir, "Heart in the Right Place", is on five national lists of the best books of the year and the funniest books ever. The “hilarious and heartbreaking” true story concerns a family emergency that forced Carolyn to abandon Washington and her glamorous career as a Senate lawyer and return home to the Smoky Mountains to work as an unpaid and inept receptionist in her father’s tiny rural medical office.

"Heart in the Right Place" has been described as a collision between “All Creatures Great and Small, Northern Exposure, and Deliverance (the clean parts).” Carolyn’s writing is frequently short-listed with the works of James Herriot, Bill Bryson, Jan Karon, and P.G. Wodehouse.

Her stories from the front lines of rural Appalachian medical care celebrate community and the human spirit and have won raves around the world. Family Circle magazine selected "Heart in the Right Place" as its first ever Book of the Month. Elle Magazine awarded it a Readers Prize and the New York Public Library chose it as a top summer read. She has appeared on Voice of America, NPR and many nationally-syndicated radio shows.

Carolyn has degrees in Biomedical Engineering and Law from the University of Tennessee. She served as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs [now Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs].

In addition, Carolyn directed and produced an award-winning documentary film about the history of the nuclear age. Her “brainy and poetic” film, Half Lives, won acclaim from critics and leading science and education organizations including the National Academy of Sciences, National Science Foundation, American Institute of Physics, American Library Association, National Science Teachers Association, and Smithsonian.

Carolyn founded and heads an educational nonprofit. She also lectures on a variety of topics such as healthcare, politics and the media, law, and writing. She lives on the family farm in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.