Author Archive: Janet Ruth Heller

I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).

Artifactory Poetry Reading on Sunday, October 20 at 1 p.m. at the Zhang Legacy Collections Center in Kalamazoo, MI

Twelve poets will be reading for Artifactory on October 20, 2019 at 1 p.m. at the Zhang Legacy Collections Center at 1650 Oakland Drive in Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5307. The following writers will present work about important places connected to the…
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Michigan College English Association’s conference on Saturday, October 5, 2019 at Michigan State University

Please join us for the Michigan College English Association’s conference on Saturday, October 5, 2019 at Michigan State University in East Lansing. The conference themes are “Borders, Walls, and Bridges.” Our featured luncheon speaker is Dennis Hinrichsen, the Lansing Poet…
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Review of the Novel Matilda by Roald Dahl

Matilda, a novel for children by Roald Dahl first published in 1988, focuses on a precocious young girl whose parents mostly ignore her.  Matilda attends an elementary school run by the abusive Headmistress Trunchbull, who hates children.  Writing with a…
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