Author Archives: janishaag

It’s been a long time since I blogged, and, looking at this site, which is now being transformed into my website, too, I’ve been thinking what I always think: Why? I write every week in my writing groups. I could … Continue reading →

(poem for a new year) blessedly empty calendar pages stretch before you seemingly endless time categorized in small boxes and you resolve again to fill the boxes thoughtfully with more wanna than hafta more smiles than grumbles shorten the to … Continue reading →

It was Kalikimaka Eve on the north shore of Kauai, which looked like most winter days do—sunny, mid-70s, the air sparkling clean after two days of on-again, off-again showers. My partner Dick and I had been on the island for … Continue reading →

(for the Pollands) You rose at 6 a.m. to see if the damn thing was finally defrosted, the decapitated hen with her big breast leaking fluids into the sink like an old radiator, too heavy for me to lift, you … Continue reading →

The year I graduated from high school the country wrapped itself in the flag for the nation’s bicentennial. Everything turned red, white and blue in 1976. I turned 18 in July and began college after Labor Day. I voted for … Continue reading →

FROM THE NEW GLASS-WALLED STUDENT SERVICES BUILDING AT SACRAMENTO CITY COLLEGE, A JOURNALISM INSTRUCTOR EXPERIENCES CAMPUS GUNFIRE.  Sacramento Magazine | November 2015 By Jan Haag Four p.m., the second Thursday of a new school year, barely September on the campus … Continue reading →

love wins he and him she and her they and them ze and hir hand in hand lip to lip arm wrapped in arm they rejoice they celebrate all over a union the president says grown a bit more perfect … Continue reading →

I’m working on a series of short (you might say even micro) fiction pieces, 1,000 words or less, which is a challenge for me. This is one of the little pieces with fictional narrators, each in a different voice. This … Continue reading →

Dear P-26/T-3: Back near the end of the last century, when the journalism department moved out here, you were called P-26—“P” for “portable”—though you’d been on this spot for a long time by then. That confused Ginny McReynolds and me, … Continue reading →

(a love poem to precipitation) For two days the sky has slowly clouded, scrunched its face like a toddler winding up for a tantrum, finally spitting petulant drops at us, and the miracle of puddles and wipers beating a steady … Continue reading →