WRITER
Writing has been a part of my life since a young age. In elementary school, I would set up a news anchor desk on our living room coffee table, complete with landline telephone and important-looking stack of papers, and read the Penguin News to our camcorder.
I earned my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Arizona in 2006. After a brief stint as a sports reporter, I discovered I liked watching sports a lot more than writing about them. Soon after graduation, I had an opportunity to transition to marketing and took it.
I began taking creative writing classes at The Writers Studio Tucson in 2012. Shortly after that, I was asked to train to become a teacher and have been teaching ever since. Today, I enjoy writing short fiction and nonfiction and performing in live storytelling shows.
Publications & Awards:
Terra Incognita* [short fiction]
Moon City Review
2023
*Pushcart Prize nominee
Reckless [flash fiction]
Necessary Fiction
April 26, 2017
Smilestone [short fiction]
Honorable Mention, Short Story Award for New Writers
Glimmer Train, January/February 2016
You, Dear Writer, are Not the Narrator [blog]
Winner, First Annual Blog Contest
Carve Magazine, October 2015
Biopsy the Day of the Boston Bombings [prose poetry]
Naugatuck River Review
Issue 14, Summer/Fall 2015
200 Stitches [flash fiction]
Mulberry Fork Review
Issue 2, September 2014
“It’s such a treat to watch Janelle gorgeously and meticulously place each character, each detail, each word into her stories and poems, as if she’s creating a mosaic, or a Tibetan Sand painting. This level of care and attention is something we all strive for as writers, and it gives Janelle this superpower to transform the facts of everyday life, from siblings to mascots to the perils of online dating, into something that shimmers, flutters, roars. Her characters crawl inside your brain and live there, illuminating the truth of the human condition in all its sorrow and glory.”
Live Storytelling Shows
“Wombmate to Tombmate”
VAMP - So Say We All
Theme: Foes with Benefits
May 2024
“The Vanishing Man”
VAMP - So Say We All
Theme: I Should Go
May 2023
“Snail Mail & Street People”
VAMP - So Say We All
Theme: Stacks on Stacks on Stacks
September 2022