Author Archives: janishaag

Thanks so much, Margo Fowkes, for asking if I’d ever written an essay about writing as healing. (I’d written bits and pieces here and there, but not an extensive piece.) I offered to write one for you, and you—creator of … Continue reading →

I’m fortunate to have poems and stories periodically published, but I like to remind people in my writing world that I generally get at least four or five rejections for every piece that’s accepted. Not a bad rate, but I … Continue reading →

I picked my way across virgin furrows,hundreds of unplanted rows somewhereoutside Winters on a breezy June day underinsistent sun, teetering on unsuitable footweartoward a lean man whose name I cannotrecall, nor the story that sent me there. A rookie journalist … Continue reading →

The royal beekeeper takes on the taskafter the monarch has passed—donning his white suit, the hat and veil, travelingto each hive to tie black bows on the towering palaces, home to tens of thousands of bees, informing them their queen … Continue reading →

The last time we were in Victoria, B.C., three summers ago—before, as they sing in “Hamilton,” “the world turned upside down”—it was July 2019, and Dick and I were marveling over our good fortune. Six months earlier in January, Dick … Continue reading →

Georgann Turner’s version of meeting Jan (written in 2012): Twenty-four years ago I was getting ready to go do a “junior year” abroad. I was no spring chicken. I was thirty-six years old, a divorced mother of an eleven-year-old and … Continue reading →

for Georgann, on the first anniversary of her death While I wait for you to die, I putternext door in the old house rendered newafter its occupants passed years ago,the neighbors having rehabbed it into a quaintguesthouse. I cannot help … Continue reading →

Without thinking, I steer toward it,needing to see that swath of strengthmaking its way through the artery of Deltato the sea. I always find you there. Under a blue-sky June dome I travel backdecades to a time capsule once anchoredhard … Continue reading →

Always after dark when the poolfloods with underwater light,the very definition of aquamarine,so that it feels like stroking throughturquoise. Alone, there’s no need to stay in one lane,which is fortunate since every summerI must relearn how to pull and scull … Continue reading →

As best I can tell, the last time Don DeVorss and I saw each other was probably at our high school graduation—Oakmont High School, June 1976, in Roseville, California. We’d gone through elementary school as well as high school together—living … Continue reading →