Through email interviews I have gotten to know Len Lear, who edits and reports on “Local Life” for the Chestnut Hill Local in Philadelphia. As a result of his thoughtful questions, I not only have gotten to know Len but I have gotten to know myself on a deeper level. A young man in my Unitarian Universalist church, mentioned that we are all large gems illuminated by beams of light (the 0ther people) shining through us. Len is a beam of light for me. This is a thank you to Len for his support of my teaching and writing. Len has interviewed me three times in the past five years. The articles are excerpted below with links to the Local.
January 5, 2017
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What are the mistakes most common among those who want to be published authors?
“One of the most common mistakes is in giving up before you get started — or giving up at any point, actually. Another mistake is taking rejection personally. Read the journals you submit to and make sure your work fits, but always understand that the business of writing is just that. It is not personal.”
Click here to read more in the Chestnut Hill Local
March 18, 2016
“Tea Leaves” also received a “Goldie” award from the Golden Crown Literary Society, and Janet received an extremely prestigious Pushcart Prize nomination recently “out of the blue” from a publication called aaduna (aaduna.org), which published an excerpt from Janet’s novel that she is currently revising titled “She and He.”
The novel is inspired by the Bible, goddess-oriented cultures in ancient Babylon, Janet’s practice of Buddhist mediation and her reading on transgender issues. Many of the characters are intersexed (born with both male and female sex characteristics). The excerpt published in aaduna is titled “The Mother.”
Click here to read more in the Chestnut Hill Local
Click here to see a video of Janet reading from THEY (formerly She and He) at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration where she is a lay minister (in Unitarian language a “worship associate”).
Click here to read an excerpt of THEY titled “Becoming Thomas.”
May 2, 2012
“I have always been a writer,” said Mason. “It is almost as natural to me as breathing. As a child, I was always making up stories, and often I wrote them down. I think writers experience the world differently than other people; we escape into imagination and then come back and explore what intrigues and haunts us. We make sense of things by writing about them. This was very true in the writing of ‘Tea Leaves.’ I wrote about my mother’s final months and my experience in caring for her.”
click here to read more in the Chestnut Hill Local
Janet Mason, author 