Author Archives: janishaag

Nov. 4 I pull on my comfy fleece, encase my feet in tennies, even ifI’ll be inside all day, because leadinga writing facilitators’ training amountsto a five-day marathon spread overtwo weekends, and no matter howmany times I’ve done this, it … Continue reading →

For Erma Bombeck, 1927–1996 And today I’m thinking of Erma,the humor columnist from Dayton who,typing from her kitchen starting in the 1950s,elevated the role of the humble housewife,who composed, she said, on a typewriterthat wrote funny, and who, on her … Continue reading →

Nov. 2, All Souls Day On the second day of Día de MuertosI read that there really is a cookbook for the dead,written, appropriately, by a Guadalajaran woman, and immediately I want to buy it for you,which is nuts, because … Continue reading →

Gonna try to write (and post) a poem a day in November… drafty drafts, but the practice of writing them is good for the writer’s soul… or mine anyway. With thanks to superb scenic photographer Joe Chan, whose images convey … Continue reading →

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 →