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I am a past president of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, and I am currently president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago.

Anaphora Literary Press published my poetry book Folk Concert: Changing Times in 2012. Finishing Line Press published my poetry book Traffic Stop in 2011. My poetry has appeared in many journals, including Anima, Frogpond, Midstream, The Minnesota Review, Cottonwood, Kentucky Poetry Review, Lilith, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Wind, The San Fernando Poetry Journal, Organic Gardening, The Writer, Women: A Journal of Liberation, Earth’s Daughters, Mothers Today, Seeding the Snow, and Modern Maturity. My poems have also been published in the anthologies Our Mothers’ Daughters (1979), Poets’ Voices 1984, Light Year ‘85, The New Poet’s Anthology (1987), Red Flower (1988), Celebrate the Midwest! (1991), Women’s Glib: A Collection of Women’s Humor (1991), Modern Poems on the Bible (1994), Women’s Spirituality, Women’s Lives (1995), Pandemonium or Life with Kids (1995), Moon Days (1999), I Killed June Cleaver (1999), Women’s Encounters with the Mental Health Establishment: Escaping the Yellow Wallpaper (2002), and Recipes for Readers from Michigan’s Authors and Illustrators (2009).

My poem "Moving In" won the Friends of Poetry annual contest for 1989 and was displayed in buses in Kalamazoo, Michigan. With the other winners, I gave a poetry reading at the Kalamazoo Art Center and videotaped a poetry reading for cable television. Also, in 1989, I presented a poetry reading at Remembering Rachel: The Second National Conference on the Spiritual Woman at Mercy College in Detroit. My reading was published in a special issue of Women and Language in 1993. I have also given poetry readings at the Midwest Modern Language Association Convention in Chicago (1994), the First International Conference on Judaism, Feminism and Psychology in Seattle (1992), the Midwest Poetry Festival at Michigan State University (1991-present), and many other venues.

I am a founding mother and editor of Primavera, a literary magazine. Primavera has won awards from Chicago Women in Publishing and the Illinois Arts Council and grants from CCLM and the NEA. Primavera was among the first journals to publish work by writers like Louise Erdrich.

My book of literary criticism, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My essay "A Visit to Isle Royale" was aired in May, 1999, over Michigan Public Radio WUOM in Ann Arbor. My creative nonfiction "Returning to Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin," appeared in Midwestern Miscellany in 2008. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan.

My fiction picture book for children about bullying, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Sylvan Dell, 2006), has received many awards, including a Book Sense Pick for 2006, a Children’s Choices selection for 2007, a Benjamin Franklin Award for 2007, and a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards for 2007.

My hobbies are hiking, singing, and birdwatching.

My website is http://www.redroom.com/author/janet-ruth-heller and the website for How the Moon Regained Her Shape is www.sylvandellpublishing.com/Moon.php

I am a past president of the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature, and I am currently president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. Anaphora Literary Press published my poetry book Folk Concert: Changing Times in 2012. Finishing Line Press published my poetry book Traffic Stop in 2011. My poe... More