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).
My tanka poem “Cottonwood Seeds” recently appeared in Ribbons 19.2 (Spring/Summer 2023) on page 42. The Tanka Society of America publishes Ribbons, and the editor is Susan Weaver. Tanka resemble haiku, but tanka are five lines long, so this format…
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Frameless Sky 18 published my senryu poem “Black Sheep” online in late June, 2023. This is a special issue on the theme of family. The guest editor is Vandana Parashar. Senryu differ from haiku because senryu poems are about people, while haiku…
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Today, ONE ART published my poem “A Former Patient Returns” online. The editor of this poetry journal is Mark Danowsky, and the link to see this poem is #poetry #psychotherapy #freeverse #literaryjournal Photo of Janet Ruth Heller by Diane Joy…
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