About
Janis Owens is a novelist, memoirist, folklorist and storyteller. She is a native of old Florida, born in Marianna in 1960. She attended public school, and the University of Florida, where she was a student of Harry Crews’ Creative Writing Workshop and earned a degree in English with a minor in Southern history.
She is active in Florida conservation, oral history, historic preservation and dedicated to the celebration and preservaton of small town Florida life. She is by trade a writer, and the award-winning author of MY BROTHER MICHAEL, winner of the Chautauqua South Fiction Award for Best Novel, MYRA SIMS, THE SCHOOLING OF CLAYBIRD CATTS, and THE CRACKER KITCHEN.
Her next novel, AMERICAN GHOST, will be published in October with Scribner.
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Tag Archives: Janis Owens
His Grace Will Lead Us Home
Into the mix of a particularly difficult summer – losing Mama and helping Daddy readjust, while meanwhile trying not to become clinically obese – yet another card has fallen. It’s a particularly painful card and all the more painful as it was unforeseen: Wendel’s lid plant, once owned by Anheuser Busch and lately, Ball Corporation, is closing. Click here to continue...
The Haunting of Brother Roy, Part II
I went down this morning to see Pops and investigate his haunting, and to continue to go through Mama’s inexhaustible stockpile of figurines, doilies, old hymnals, handbags, moisturizers, devotionals, free Medicare bras, and mass market paperbacks. I am thinking about counting how many white blouses she has in her closet because I think she might hold a Ripley’s-Believe-Or-Not world record. Click here to continue...
Of Ghosts and Men
I‘m taking a break from the old Mourning Loop to brighten the Dog Days of a difficult summer with two very bright pieces of news: Elle Magazine has picked American Ghost to feature in its November issue (which conveniently comes out in October, just prior to publication) and I’ll be speaking at SIBA in Naples in September, and the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading on October 20th and a whole tour full of bookstores Near You, including Girlfriend Weekend in Jefferson, Texas. Click here to continue...
Sprig of Life
I went down to help pops clean out Mama’s vast caverns of crochet thread and crochet needles; sewing boxes, sewing drawers and enough paper back books to open a small library. On a shelf of favor was the My Brother Michael I gave her sixteen years ago, so well read that the golden ribbon was frayed. It made for a teary moment, as did the bedside table, one drawer filled with medical paraphernalia – Mama never met a pill she didn’t like – and another filled with random photographs of her grandchildren that had come to Daddy’s computer over the years, on holidays and at graduations, that he’d scanned on his ancient old scanner for her to keep. Click here to continue...
Promise The Grief Won’t Go On Forever
I understand that I am getting perilously close to turning this into a Grief Blog, but before I progress to the giving-away-all-mama’s-yarn stage of Southern Mourning, I have to relate yet another moment of grace, which came at the hands of my dear friends Tricia and Burt, who drove down from Tallahassee in the withering heat to attend the funeral. Burt is an old Mayranna boy (in her career-girl days, mama once worked for his family at Gillis Insurance Company) and in lue of flowers, he brought me a giant zip-lock bag of chocolate-chip monster cookies. Click here to continue...