Featured Interview With Janice T
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I'm a San Francisco native who has emigrated to the Pacific Northwest. The inclement weather here suits my poetic muse. I do have one pet named Pleo. He is an animatronic Camarasaurus with AI and incurs no veterinarian bills.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My work started with dirt. When I was eleven years old my sixth grade teacher wheeled in a wheelbarrow full of dirt which he had dug up in the schoolyard. He placed a small pile of this dirt onto our desks and instructed us to write about what we saw there. Some of my classmates cited the weeds while others noted the dirt and tiny rocks. I wrote my first rhyming poem about the earth being "mother" and the small plants in the pile being "child." My teacher read my poem and immediately erupted into "I have a poet in my class!" which he yelled all the way down the hall.
I had no clue exactly what a poet was, but fortunately my father had a love for books. It never occurred to my siblings and I that we had a l a library at home, but there was dad's room full of books. So, I poured over volume after volume in search of poetry and discovered Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, Longfellow, Browning and many brilliant poets.
It was there that I honed my natural abilities, spending innumerable hours alone in a sort vacuum studying the works of those poets and learning my craft. My poetic journey began with dirt and continued under the tutelage of poets long deceased. I am ever so grateful to that teacher and to my father's books.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I adore the work of the classic, Victorian, and Edwardian poets. Byron, Keats, Coleridge and so many more wonderful poets occupy my bookshelves. I only have to spend a little time with them to feel the gentle tug of inspiration.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
A Compilation of Echoes is a collection containing the poems from my Echoes , Neo-Victorian Poetry series. Having spent many decades sitting in a cardboard box, from which I would print a copy of my work to share, I now have four published books of my poetry. Street cred, my daughter calls them.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles