Author Janine M. Donoho

Click here for Janine's Interview with Kelley Pounds

Author Presentations

Janine is available to give the following 45-minute Power Point presentations interspersed with readings from her novels, plus additional time for a question & answer period. Please contact her if you are interested.

Drawing on the Cosmos--A writer and biologist opens herself to nature and the universe-at-large to develop creative characters. Join her as she explores the natural world as a story entity.

Going Where Joy Takes You--A writer speaks about creating stories you find irresistible and immersing yourself in the stories you create.

Biography

Award-winning author Janine Donoho, who also writes under pseudonyms Jessie Jayne Smith and J. M. Donoho, cannot resist building new worlds. With one foot firmly planted in fuzzy science and the other in fantastic realms, she inhabits what if. Published in scientific fields as well as fiction, Janine continues to pursue the thuds that echo in the night and write about those, too.

Writing as Jesse Jayne Smith, her contemporary women’s fiction Wildfire tied for first in Stella Cameron’s contest at the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Conference. In this novel published by CMP Publishing, an artist who depends upon her healing connections with her community battles a scientist intent on changing all she holds most dear.

What do you get when you fuse literary fiction with contemporary fantasy? Elementals. These novels by Janine M. Donoho ‘blend the best of Alice Hoffman with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’. In the Air Elemental Calling Down the Wind, imagine a young woman who releases the wind to take away her brutal stepfather. Whip into this mix skinheads, hedge-witch magic, wild mustangs, love and arson—and you will discover the essence of Calling Down the Wind. This is Donoho’s first novel in this stand-alone series, which began the trek as a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association non-genre contest.

Writers’ Weekend award-winner Soundings, her Water Elemental, explores what happens when you slip your skin and try to become other than who you are. This journey interweaves Selkie shapeshifters, serial murder, obsession, and redemptive love into story.

With short stories published in magazines such as Fantasy, Folklore and Fairytales and Legions of Light, Donoho consistently listens to her muses. As a biologist and former contributor to the column ‘Earth, Sea & Sky’, in a daily Puget Sound newspaper and an ardent conservationist previously involved with Sustainable Kitsap and Master Gardeners, she still finds time for invitational readings with writer friends and critique partners. Donoho serves her writing community as past member of Romance Writers of America (RWA) and Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA). With her indefatigable husband, sight hounds and tuxedo cat, she makes her home in the spectacular highlands of Okanogan County in eastern Washington State. There, Donoho writes daily and ponders the underpinnings of life.