About Me
Janet Calcaterra Writer, Editor, Educator
I am a writer, an editor, and an educator who has hosted or attended a monthly performance series of the written and spoken word, The Conspiracy of Three, for over thirty years. My publications include my first novel, The Burden of Memories, short stories and non-fiction articles. These include garden and travel pieces with photos, book and art exhibition reviews, personal essays and magazine and newspaper articles. I have taught from junior-kindergarten to university, most recently creative writing for Canadore College and Nipissing University. Now that I'm retired, I write full time.
I was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a few years after WWII ended. My father, a surgeon during the war, suffered PTSD, which caused me to write about war and its effects on ordinary people.
As a child I loved books. My favourite, "The Boxcar Children," by Gertrude Chandler Warner, was read to my grade two class every day after lunch. The story so engrossed me I decided to become a writer.
My introduction to gardening came one Toronto summer when, to avoid the heat, I escaped to my mother's garden. She had me deadhead her flowers. By the following spring, I was planting annuals. Since then, gardening has become one of my favourite pastimes.
When my birth date and a school acceleration made me two-years younger than my classmates, I escaped by reading rather than joining their often age-inappropriate activities. This reading lead me to study English at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario and to Toronto Teachers' College. Later, I obtained an MFA Creative Writing: Fiction from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, N.J. USA, During my undergraduate years, I became involved in the peace movement in response to the War in Vietnam.
In the spirit of the peace and back-to-the-land movements, I moved to 160 acres of land in northern Ontario, built a house, grew and preserved vegetables, and planted perennial flowers. I had turned to what I thought was life, Walden-style. There my desire to write and publish became real.
After ten years of living in the bush, during which time I had two daughters, I wanted my children to experience a more urban lifestyle, so I settled in North Bay, Ontario. Since then, I have attended writing workshops with Leon Rooke, Richard Ford, and Marina Endicott as well as David Helwig, Bonnie Burnard, Bronwyn Wallace, Timothy Findley, and Carol Shields before their deaths.
My first novel, The Burden of Memories, was published by Latitude46 on May 14, 2022. I am nearing completion of a short story collection with the working title, "Blue Willow Stories," some of which have been published. I am also working on a young adult novel set in northern Ontario, with the working title "Big Shore."