Greetings From Janeland

by Candace Walsh

  JEANETTE LEBLANC spent most of her life working very hard to be a good girl. One day she woke up and decided to write her way out of her own life, and things haven’t been the same since. Single mama to two ridiculously unruly daughters, Jeanette believes in the smooth honey bliss of whiskey, the crashing of mama ocean, pencil skirts, vintage band tees and fringed boots, the kinship of the wild wolf, walking for miles in unfamiliar cities, the singular power of dark-red lipstick, the necessity of putting out for the muse on the regular—and that the burn down always precedes the rise. And she believes that sometimes our stories are the only things that can save us. Jeanette writes at peacelovefree.com and is the creator and founder of wildheartwriters.com.

  BK LOREN’s short fiction and nonfiction can be found in numerous anthologies and periodicals, including The Best Spiritual Writing of 2004 and 2012; Orion Magazine; OnEarth (NRDC’s mag); Parabola; and many other no-ad magazines. Her novel Theft won the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Award and a Willa Award, and was a finalist for the Lambda Novel Award, among others. It is currently optioned for film, with BK writing the screenplay. Her essay collection, Animal, Mineral, Radical, won the Colorado Book Award, and many pieces therein garnered national prizes. She lives with her partner in Colorado and is completing a new novel and two screenplays. She invites you to read Sawnie’s poetry at sawniemorris.com, because her voice, too, is part of this story. You can reach BK here, if you like: bkloren.com

  DARSHANA MAHTANI comes from a Sindhi family. She is a granddaughter to survivors of the Partition of India and Creation of Pakistan. She is currently an ESL Teacher and student of the Raja Yoga practice. She is a poet and an aspiring novelist and screenwriter. She wants to change the world and find the rest of her tribe. She is part of the {R}evolution happening right now, at a corner near you. Recently married to the love of her life, Lauren, they are soon moving to Prescott, AZ, to live out their days in a yurt on a mountain. Learn more about Dolly here: callingonangelsdaily.wordpress.com.

  STAR MCGILL-GOUDEY is a freelance writer who lives in Tennessee with her husband, children, grandchildren, dogs, horses, and Silkie chickens. She has been published in Urban Howl, Wild Heart Writers, Penny Ante Feud, Teenage Christian, and The Equine Image. She is on staff at Wild Heart Writers as writer and social media minion. She spent most of her life in denial of her bisexuality, but now celebrates who she is. She is committed to being visible and available to those who are on the same path by writing and sharing her journey.

  AMANDA MEAD is a writer and teacher in Washington state. She received her MFA from Eastern Washington University, where she served as poetry editor for Willow Springs. She has written for Good Vibrations Magazine and “i believe you/it’s not your fault,” and was a contributor to Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write about Leaving Men for Women (Seal Press, 2010). Her poetry has been published in Calyx, Drunken Boat, Confronta-tion, and elsewhere.

  CARLA SAMETH has an MFA in creative writing (Latin America) from Queens University and recently completed a memoir-in-essays. Her work has appeared in several anthologies and publications including Brain, Child; Full Grown People; Mutha Magazine; Narratively; Tikkun; Pasadena Weekly, and La Bloga.

  Carla is a member of the Pasadena Rose Poets, who presented a four-week “Poetry Within Reach” series via an NEA grant in summer 2016. She was a fall 2016 PEN In The Community teaching artist and edited a recently published anthology, Voices Never Heard, with writing by her students. She teaches at the Los Angeles Writing Project (LAWP), Secondary Writing Institute at California State University Los Angeles. Carla has helped others tell their stories through her business (iMinds PR), as cofounder of the Pasadena Writing Project and as a writing instructor and mentor for incarcerated youth through WriteGirl.

  AMELIA SAUTER is a restaurant owner, professional baker, and freelance food-and-drink writer for a variety of publications, including Edible Finger Lakes. She was a contributor to Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write about Leaving Men for Women (Seal Press, 2010), and to the anthology Here Come the Brides (Seal Press). She and her wife have chronicled their cancer journey at thebestworstcase.com. Amelia’s website (which is actually filled with humor writing) is drinkmywords.com.

  JOEY SCHULTZ-EZELL is a fifty-two-year-old woman living in the Kansas City metro area. Her thirty-five-year career has covered the publishing gamut. She was an award-winning sports writer and news reporter before transitioning to the role of editor, then managing editor. She then joined a cutting-edge publishing company where she spent eighteen years as an executive and from which she recently retired. She’s written software specs and sports stories, complex patent applications and catchy ad copy, and has published periodicals, books, websites, and marketing materials.

  ADA SCOTT received her MFA from Brooklyn College. She has been published in several literary journals, most recently Rozlyn: Short Fiction by Women Writers.

  EMILY J. SMITH is a writer and tech professional based in Brooklyn. Her writing has appeared in Salon; Bustle; Citizens of Culture; and on Medium.com, among others. You can find her on Twitter @emjsmith.

  CASSIE PREMO STEELE, PhD, is the author of fourteen books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including, most recently, Beautiful Waters, poetry based on her honeymoon with her wife. Her poetry has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, and she wrote a popular column for Literary Mama called “Birthing the Mother Writer.” She lives in South Carolina with her wife and daughter, two dogs, and three bunnies.

  M. E. TUDOR is originally from central Indiana and now lives in south-central Kentucky with her partner, three grandchildren, three cats, and an adorable dog. She also has two grown daughters who live in southern Kentucky and a total of nine grand-children, including her partner’s three grandchildren. Tudor has lived in Florida, Texas, and Colorado at different times of her life, and her stories reflect her love of traveling, hiking, camping, and being outdoors in general. She is the author of eight novels: Suddenly; The Wrong Place at the Right Time; Judge Not; Second Chances; Afternoon Delight; The Perfect Proposal; Standing Her Ground and Taste Testing (Tea Rose Books). Find out more at metudor.com.

  SUSAN WHITE likes to pretend all of North Carolina is like Asheville. She has been a high-school English teacher for twenty-three years, but only “Teaching Out” for three years. In the gaps between evaluating student writing, she has managed to publish poems, short stories, and creative nonfiction in many publications, including Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write about Leaving Men for Women (Seal Press, 2010); The Labletter; Drunken Boat; Pisgah Review; The Battered Suitcase and Deep South Magazine. She and her partner share their home with five dogs and two sugar gliders.

  EMILY WITHNALL is a writer, teacher, and queer solo parent of two daughters. Her work has appeared in the Ms. Magazine blog; High Country News; Mamalode: El Palacio magazine, and Concīs Magazine, among others. An excerpt of Emily’s manuscript, Fracture, won first place in creative nonfiction for the 2016 AWP Writers’ Conferences & Centers Award. Most recently, she was awarded a residency at Sundress Academy for the Arts in 2017 and was a finalist for their VIDA fellowship.

  Acknowledgments

  We would like to thank Jarred Weisfeld at Cleis Press for getting in touch with Candace out of the blue, just as we were firming up our decision to do a sequel. We would also like to thank every single person who sent us a story. We wish we had had the word count to include them all. Unending appreciation to Krista Lyons, who, when she was at Seal Press, so enthusiastically championed the Dear John, I Love Jane proposal and gave us such an amazing debut and such a strong place from which to grow. We also want to thank Lambda Literary, for selecting Dear John, I Love Jane as a finalist. Rachel Kramer Bussel generously provided valuable advice. Laura M. André and Louise Smith were unfailingly good natured about being pressed into service as excellent referees and readers. Without all of the vocal and devoted Dear John, I Love Jane readers, this book would not have a reason to exist (here’s looking at you, Re
becca Gold).

  Candace would like to thank Barbara for her saint-level patience, endless enthusiasm, fearless feedback, and for offering her beautiful home as Janeland HQ for a dizzy, thrilling, produc-tive launch pad of an editing-marathon weekend that supple-mented many hours of virtual meetings and emailed editorial round robins. Barbara will always be her queen for recreating the very essential master Google spreadsheet that mysteriously vaporized one day. She also thanks Mary Anderson for being such an inspiration, cheerleader, and love warrior.

  Barbara would like to thank Candace for seeing the value in her submission to Dear John, I Love Jane lifetimes ago, which, in fact, launched Barbara’s writing career. Candace is, simply put, a force of nature. She gets things done. For Barbara, it has been a unique honor to work with such a beautiful soul who offers boundless inspiration, brilliance, talent, patience, and friendship.

  We also want to thank the people and places that shared our call for submissions: Stephanie Lippitt at Cleis Press, Dina Relles at Literary Mama, Susan Maccarelli at Beyond Your Blog, and Jennifer Niesslein at Full Grown People, Facebook friends, secret Facebook groups, and various newsletters.