Desaulniers, Janet 1954-

views updated

DESAULNIERS, Janet 1954-

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in Kansas City, MO; married; children: one son. Education: University of Missouri, B.A; Iowa Writers' Workshop, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—1508 Florence Ave., Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail—jdesaul@comcast.net.

CAREER: Writer. Taught writing at Northwestern University, Carthage College, and University of Missouri; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, M.F.A. in writing program, associate professor.

AWARDS, HONORS: James Michener/Copernicus Society fellowship for Work in Progress, 1983; Henfield/Transatlantic Review Award, 1983; Pushcart Prize, 1984; Illinois Arts Council literature fellowship, 1985, 1989, 1992, 2000; Illinois Arts Council Literary Award, 1987; named Emerging Fiction Writer of Illinois, Poets and Writers' Exchange Program, 1992; National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship, 1992; selection for IAC/ALA Statewide Reading Series, 1994; Cohen Award for best short story in volume year, Ploughshares, 1996; Very Short Fiction Award first prize, Glimmer Train, 1999; John Simmons Short Fiction Award, 2004.

WRITINGS:

What You've Been Missing (stories), University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA), 2004.

Contributor to books, including The Ploughshares Reader: New Fiction for the Eighties, edited by DeWitt Henry, Pushcart Press, 1985; Love Stories for the Time Being, edited by Bill Henderson, Pushcart Press, 1987; The Best American Short Stories, 1994, 1996; Breaking into Print: Early Stories and Insights into Getting Published, edited by DeWitt Henry, Beacon Press, 2000; and Four-Minute Fictions, edited by Robley Wilson, Word Beat Press. Contributor to periodicals, including telophase, Glimmer Train, New Yorker, New England Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, North American Review, and Chelsea.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A novel that "will follow a group of characters caught in a hostile work environment during a corporate takeover."

SIDELIGHTS: In 2004 Janet Desaulniers published a collection of stories, many of which had already appeared in prestigious periodicals. In fact, her first published story, which she wrote during her studies at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, appeared in the New Yorker. Containing ten stories, What You've Been Missing is unified by the theme of personal calamity. As Melissa Walker elaborated in a BookSlut online interview, "This is the moment that Desaulniers's stories depict, the moment when one thing becomes something else. A marriage breaks, a girl becomes a drunk, a child discovers his independence." Intimacy ranks high among Desaulniers's varied themes. "I just didn't understand how it [intimacy] worked or why it didn't work, and so I was terribly interested in it," she told This Week News online interviewer Christy Zempter. "And I think that what I was discovering is what the characters were discovering—that there is and should be space between people that is respected, that even in the most intimate arrangement of heart there is something that belongs only to the other and something that belongs only to the self, and respect for that is critical."

Reviewers saw much to like in Desaulniers' stories. A Publishers Weekly contributor pointed out the author's "uncomplicated but elegant language … graceful, even tone … realistic dialogue and poignant introspection," while Booklist critic Jerry Eberle noted the author's "precision of language and the illumination of small truths." According to Fred Leebron, writing in Ploughshares, the collection "is surprisingly lovely and thrilling." A Kirkus Reviews contributor summed up What You've Been Missing as "a sensitive, haunting debut."