About Jan

I’ve been working with words all my life—but not always in anything like my current roles as communications consultant / web content manager / writer / editor for nonprofit organizations.

I went to the University of Iowa…well, because of in-state tuition, frankly, but also because it was home to the famous Iowa Writers Workshop. I thought I would become, if not The Great American Novelist, at least An American Novelist. But my first exposure to Great Literature disabused me of that notion, and I cast about for other ways to make money off a love of words.

I since have taught English to seventh graders in an urban parochial school, to hordes of college freshmen, and to adults in both college and pre-college programs. I served for a time as a Lutheran minister, where a feel for the poetry of language made me a reasonably good preacher. I worked very briefly for ETS, learning one of the most demanding forms of writing: the five-option test question. (You may hate me if you struggled with the GRE or LSAT, but not the SAT—I didn’t write for that test.)  I got a lot of work out of that test development experience, writing both real tests and test preparation materials for a variety of publishers.

Though I started my editorial career as a freelance proofreader for book publishers, I quickly moved to copyediting and then to developmental editing, which is my real forte: working with an author to clarify audience and purpose, hone ideas, and organize material for effective presentation.

That, plus the ability to schedule a publication and keep it moving to that schedule, is what brought me back into the nonprofit arena where I belong. I started by editing newsletters and journals for education-related nonprofits. From publishing such print materials because “it’s what an organization like ours does,” we moved gradually to developing a strategic communications program.

Obviously website content management is a major part of such a program. As the world moves online, my career and expertise have gone with it, so that an ever-increasing part of my work is writing for the web and working with designers to set up structures and navigation so users can find what they want.

A strategic communications program usually includes media outreach. It almost always involves creating an array of communication tools, in print and online, to help organizations tell their stories. It definitely involves a lot of collaboration among numerous stakeholders, and fortunately I’m an extroverted introvert who can get a lot of decisions made in a meeting and then go back to my office to write for a week.
That’s the sort of thing I have been doing these past ten years for a variety of clients and employers. That’s what I can do for you.

I live in Essex County, New Jersey, with my husband of 15 years. When I’m not working, I sing in a women’s choir, volunteer in various capacities with my church, weed my tomato plants, read novels, and work Sudoku. I’d rather be outside in the sunshine than anywhere else—so fine spring days find me outside on the patio with my computer and phone, writing and editing and keeping in touch with my clients.