Jana Harris (born September 21, 1947) is an American poet, novelist, and essayist, and the founder of one of the internet's first electronic poetry journals.
Biography
Harris was born in San Francisco, California. She earned a B.S. from the University of Oregon (1969) and an M.A. from San Francisco State University (1972). She has taught creative writing at New York University (1980) and, since 1986, at the University of Washington.
She is the founder and editor of Switched-on Gutenberg, one of the internet's earliest electronic poetry journals. Its first issue was published in June 1995 and included work by Galway Kinnell, Joyce Carol Oates, and others.
Several of her volumes of poetry concern the lives of American pioneers and settlers. The Dust of Everyday Life: An Epic Poem of the Pacific Northwest (1998), which won the Andres Berger Award, examines the lives of pioneers in the Pacific Northwest. Two other collections, Oh How Can I Keep on Singing: Voices of Pioneer Women (1993) and You Haven't Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore: Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier (2014), are based on the diaries, reminiscences, and stories of 19th-century American pioneer women.
Harris's poetry has been widely anthologized. Among her awards are the Pushcart Prize for poetry (2001), the Andres Berger Award, and the Washington State Governor's Writers Award. She has been a finalist for the PEN West Center Award. Her collection Manhattan as a Second Language and Other Poems (1982) and Oh How Can I Keep on Singing both received Pulitzer Prize nominations.
Her nonfiction book Horses Never Lie about Love: The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her (2011) recounts her experiences with a horse injured in a fire.
Personal life
Harris lives in the Cascade Mountains and raises horses with her husband, Mark Allen Bothwell.
Selected publications
Poetry
- This House Rocks with Every Truck on the Road (1976)
- Pin Money: Poems (1977)
- The Clackamas (1980)
- Manhattan As a Second Language and Other Poems (1982) — Pulitzer Prize nominee
- The Sourlands: Poems (1989)
- Oh How Can I Keep on Singing: Voices of Pioneer Women (1993) — PEN West Center Award finalist, Pulitzer Prize nominee
- The Dust of Everyday Life: An Epic Poem of the Pacific Northwest (1998) — Andres Berger Award
- We Never Speak of It: Idaho-Wyoming Poems, 1889-90 (2003) — nominated for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
- You Haven't Asked About My Wedding or What I Wore: Poems of Courtship on the American Frontier (2014)
Novels
- Alaska (1980) — Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection
- The Pearl of Ruby City: A Mystery (1998)
Nonfiction
- Horses Never Lie About Love: The Heartwarming Story of a Remarkable Horse Who Changed the World Around Her (2011)
