Jan Bowman

 
 
 


Current and Future Project



Click here to contact Jan - email:    janbowmanwriter@gmail.com


Updated March 2014


This page describes current and future projects under development.   


First Project.  A collection of short stories.

Working Title:  Mermaids and Other Stories.


I am looking for a suitable small publishing house. I hope to publish this collection in 2014.


The opening story, “Mermaids” won the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Prize and was published in 2012.  That and the other stories in the collection explore the power of small gestures in those moments of human kindness. The collection of 10 stories consists of seven previously published stories and three others that are currently out for publication consideration with literary journals. This is my first story collection.  A number of the stories in this collection have been finalists and/or nominated for various awards or honorable mentions by literary journals over the past couple of years.


I find, as do the characters in my stories, comfort in the last stanza of Nye’s poem:   “Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore.” 

It is extraordinarily encouraging that humans continue to help each other and provide comfort - often in the most unobtrusive, subtle ways.  Isn’t that amazing!  Especially when we would come to believe from a typical day’s dose of media horrors, that our society has lost its capacity for kindness. This idea of kindness in the face of loss lends structure to my stories and I explore it without sentimentality.


Second Project.     In Process  - of approximately 120 pages

A short novel or novella based on my short story - “After the Rain” published in

Big Muddy. Theme: Climate Change Impact in the Heartlands

The working title is Higher Ground: Tipping the Flood Zone.


Third Project. 

A Collection of Connected Short Stories -  Climate Change Theme

Working Title:  The Beaufort Scale:  Stories Modified for Land Use.


Fourth Project.  First draft stories - a work in process

A Collection of Stories About Women and Children - 

Working Title:  Lifeboats Drills for Children.

Stories about Children and the Women Who:

  1. 1.  want them and can’t have them;

  2. 2.  have them but don’t want them;

  3. 3.  lose them suddenly;

  4. 4.  gain them unexpectedly.


The stories are told from the perspective of essentially flawed, but good women who come to realize or fail to realize something essential.


Other Current Writing Related Projects


  1. 5.I teach an 8-week class for two sessions each year. 

    Winter session:  Jan.-Feb. and Fall session: Sept.- Oct.

    Title:  Journal-Keeping & Memoir Writing:

    “From Where I’ve Been & What I’ve Seen”


6.  I write weekly reflections essays on the writing life for my website blog, using photographs from my travels and from a few close friends’ travels.

The Blog focuses upon the writing life, and is posted most weeks on Friday afternoons and sometimes on Tuesdays. Posting may include interviews with writers, publishers, and editors. And also includes book reviews from myself or readers each month.


  1. 7. I am working on a collection of Flash Fictions & Short-shorts

     - working title: IF ONLY YOU KNEW: Second Person Observations.


  1. 8.I am conducting a series of interviews for publication in literary journals.


  1. 9.I am working on two e-books of Interviews and of Writing Reflections.


  1. 10.  Reading Fiction and Nonfiction and Poetry.