Janet Ruth Heller, Ph.D., is the past president of the Michigan College English Association and the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature. She has a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. She has taught literature, women’s studies, composition, and creative writing at Michigan State University, Northern Illinois University, Nazareth College, Western Michigan University, Albion College, Grand Valley State University, Olivet College, and the University of Chicago. She has published seven books for children and for adults. Her website is https://www.janetruthheller.com
She has published four books of poetry: Nature’s Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Editions, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012), and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). She is a founding mother and former editor of Primavera, an award-winning literary magazine. The University of Missouri Press published her scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama (1990). Her essay “A Visit to Isle Royale” was aired over Michigan Public Radio (1999). Her creative nonfiction “Returning to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin” appeared in Midwestern Miscellany (2008). Her play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival in Fenton, Michigan (2011). Her play Pledging was performed at Triton College in Illinois as part of the Tritonysia Play Festival in 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).
Heller’s fiction picture book about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has received many awards, including a Book Sense Pick (2006), a Children’s Choices selection (2007), a Benjamin Franklin Award (2007), and a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards (2007). She has also published The Passover Surprise (Fictive Press, 2015, 2016), a middle-grade fiction chapter book for children.
