St. James has a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre with a concentration in Film.[6][7] At age 27, she moved to
Los Angeles to pursue a career in the mainstream
entertainment industry.[5] She worked as an actress in films and television shows and has directed small mainstream projects as well.[6] She also worked in
online advertising for over 13 years.[4]
Career
In May 2010, a friend of St. James, who is a director of photography, sent her a clip of The Wedding Day from the
New Sensations Romance Series because he was impressed by the quality of the film.[4] After researching The Romance Series, she discovered that New Sensations was doing a writing contest for the series.[4] Adult film director Eddie Powell gave her advice on how to write a porn script after she contacted him on
Twitter.[7] She entered the contest in 2011 and her script, Dear Abby, won.[8] Powell directed the film and New Sensations released it in June 2011.[2] St. James also won Best Screenplay for the film at the
2012AVN Awards.[9]
Some of St. James's most notable works are Torn, The Temptation of Eve, and The Submission of Emma Marx (including three sequels).[10][11] She co-directed Torn with Eddie Powell and it won the AVN Award for Best Romance Release in 2013, the year in which the category was first created.[10] In 2014, The Temptation of Eve and The Submission of Emma Marx won AVN Awards for Best Romance Movie and Best BDSM Movie, respectively.[11] That same year, St. James began to direct mostly for
Digital Sin's Tabu Tales, a line with plots featuring sex between
stepfamily members.[11] In 2014, she became only the second woman after
Stormy Daniels to win an
XRCO Award as Best Director (Feature), an honor she could retain in the following two years. In 2015 and 2016, she also received the
XBIZ Award for Director of the Year – Body of Work. The 2015 sequel The Submission of Emma Marx 2: Boundaries won her two more screenplay awards, an AVN and XBIZ Award. In 2016, she co-created a
Showtime erotic series, Submission with
Paul Fishbein.[12] Since 2019, Jacky St. James has been also directing movies for site
Bellesa Films, including their imprint Bellesa House.[13][14]