Two poems forthcoming in the journal Nashim

The journal Nashim has accepted my two poems “Family Reunions” and “Synagogue Rummage Sale” for publication in its fall 2020 issue. I’m delighted!

“Family Reunions” is about my my family’s close ties to my mother’s twin brother’s family. We celebrated all holidays together. I used to be in charge of rummage sales at my synagogue, and I write about this complex experience in “Synagogue Rummage Sale.”

Janet Ruth Heller reading her poetry at the Kalamazoo Public Library; photo by Hedy Habra

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).