Fiction Writer, Poet, Playwright, Educator, Memoir Writer and Literary Critic
I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).
Tina Arnoldi included my comments about creative writing in her article entitled “Creative Activities Benefit Mental Health” posted on theravive.com. The link to this article is https://www.theravive.com/today/post/creative-activities-benefit-mental-health-0004682.aspx
The online Knot Magazine recently published my six poems “Nature Walk at Shenandoah National Park,” “Music Lessons,” “At Miller’s Pub,” “Elegy for Dad,” “Elegy for a ʼPossum,” and “In the Nursing Home.” The link to my poems is https://www.knotliteraturemagazine.com/janet-ruth-heller
Editor Michael Toebe has published my comments about thinking deeply in Red Diamonds Features. The article title is “Why We’re Pained When We Need to Think Deeply — A Conversation.” He interviewed various individuals about this topic. Here is the…
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