Fiction
Ben Cartwright’s Long Lost Son
“Ben Cartwright’s Long Lost Son” is a short story that grew out of my fascination with TV westerns and cowboys. While at Simmons College, I had the opportunity to take a digital story telling workshop with Lesley Weiman. I had already written the text, and Lesley helped me combine my words with pictures and music to create the digital story you can watch if you click below. Enjoy. It lasts six minutes.
The Side Door
Approximately three years ago, I began writing short stories from the point of view of Melrose Gray, a 15 year old lesbian. At some point, the stories connected and found their way into a novel called The Side Door. I am currently in the process of revising this manuscript.
“Salamander”
I met Sara St. Antoine, the editor of Stories from Where We Live at a children’s book writing conference. I told her I had grown up playing on the prairie, and she encouraged me to write about it. “Salamander” grew out of that conversation. While it is not a true story—I never met a mysterious woman on the prairie—I did spend lots of time on the prairie, and I often came home with a salamander, a jar of tadpoles, or a toad.
You can also find Jan’s story “Salamader” in Milkweed Editions’ Stories from Where We Live: The Great North American Prairie
“A Fable About Seashells that Used to Be Hands”
I wrote “Fable” while I was teaching a fiction writing class at Goddard College. The story is disturbing—about a rape where the woman’s hands are cut off. The story grew out of my anger at the terrorism that constantly confronts women but is seldom taken as seriously as other forms of terrorism.
“A Fable About Seashells that Used to Be Hands” was printed in Room Magazine 21:4