Janet's books include The Writer on Her Work, both volumes called landmarks by Poets & Writers Magazine and selected for 500 Great Books by Women: 13th Century to the Present. As past Director of Writers in Performance at the Manhattan Theatre Club, she is known as a pioneer in creating new ways to bring literature to the stage. Her essays and poetry have been widely published; most recently her personal essay, The Scan Chronicles appears in Living on The Margins: Women Writers on Breast Cancer. A memoir, Phantom Limb, is forthcoming in 2001.

Janet has also worked extensively with visual images. Her films include the prize-winning Virginia Woolf: The Moment Whole, as well as Through Her Eyes, the first nationally broadcast series on women's independent films. Her photography has been honored with a one-person exhibition at Bellas Artes, Mexico's national arts center; a portfolio of her work is appearing in Aperture, the international journal of fine-art photography. One of her photographs is on the cover of the Fall 2000 issue of Prairie Schooner. 
 

The Story of The Writer on Her Work

1978
I am in a bookstore in New York City looking for a book about being a woman and being a writer. I assume that such a book exists -- it's just a question of tracking it down. . . When I realized that the book I envisioned did not exist, I conceived of a book made up of personal essays, each written especially for it. 

1978-80
Commissioned essays and worked closely with the writers. 

1980
The first volume of The Writer on Her Work, is published to widespread notice and acclaim. Selection of the major book clubs. For reviews, see Press Room. 

1991
The second volume (this time, international) is published; chosen for 500 Great Books for Women.

1992
Article in Poets & Writers Magazine, calling the books "landmarks . . . groundbreaking."

1980 - 1999
These years see The Writer on Her Work joined by many other related books. The Writer on Her Work continues to stay in print: so far Volume one for twenty years, Volume two for ten years. Adopted for courses; curricula. For reviews, see Press Room. 

2000
On the occasion of its anniversary in 2000, the first volume is re-issued, with a new cover and a new preface by Julia Alvarez about what the book has meant and continues to mean to women. I publish an essay in The Women's Review of Books, looking at The Writer on Her Work then and now.