Too Good Not to Share

One of the best things about creating the pages for Reading Nation Magazine is learning about our authors. Some days I’ll find myself in blog an hour after clicking on a website “just to get the link”. So I thought I’d start sharing them here instead - and call the article exactly what it is. Things I find that are too good not to share.

Surprise Janet Oakley! This month I’m sharing a treasure I found on your website that is…

Too Good Not to Share

I COME FROM A FAMILY OF PACK RATS.

History stirs on the shelves in teapots and in boxes full of letters and journals as long ago as 1830. The family story goes back to 1638. But it’s been the stories of my Nana, her mother Martha Parker March and my own mother who have nourished me. There are strong women in the family. Ansenith Parker, Quaker missionary to the Shawnee and Kaw. Martha March, teacher of ex-slaves and Kiowa children and president of the Idaho Womans’ Relief Corps. Mysterious Judith March who was fined for wearing a lace cap above her station in the 1600s. Writing about them has helped me examine my own life and upbringing.

Then there was my great-grandfather William F. Osborn. I was seven years old when my mother put into my hand his small, leather-bound pocket journal. He was a Union surgeon in the Civil War writing under the thunder of guns and duress at Gettysburg and many more horrendous places. He wrote quick notes in pencil and pen, sometimes only a few lines at a time.

Wednesday, July 1st

Found a part of our corps engaging the enemy, about 20,000 strong. A severe engagement followed. Our forces were driven back by superior numbers.

I wrote my first historical fiction story in fifth grade. I haven’t stopped.

Today, I write historical fiction that spans the midnineteenth century to WW II with characters standing up for something in their own time and place. I’m proud that my writing has been recognized with a 2013 Bellingham Mayor’s Arts Award, the 2013 Chanticleer Grand Prize for TREE SOLDIER, 2015 WILLA Silver Award for TIMBER ROSE and the 2016 Goethe Award Grand Prize for THE JØSSING AFFAIR. MIST-CHI- MAS, set on San Juan Island after the Pig War, is an 2018 IndieBRAG Medallion book, 2018 WILLA Award finalist and won second place in the Will Rogers Medallion Award, Western Romance.

When not writing, I demonstrate nineteenth-century folkways in the schools and at San Juan Island National Park. And I have a cat who thinks she’s editing.

Though Janet has lived in the Pacific NW for many years, she has also lived in Hawaii, Washington DC and Pittsburgh. She has been a guide at Mission Houses in Honolulu, a museum educator at a small NW county museum, and a Humanities Washington speaker.

And she can churn some pretty mean butter.