
Janet Barkhouse
Janet Barkhouse retired from professional theatre in 1982, and from teaching high school English in 2005. She’s written and directed plays for children from ages 8 to 18, written innovative English curriculum for the Province of Nova Scotia, and given workshops and readings for young people, teachers and writers across the Province.
In 2006 she fell in love with writing poems. Since then she has studied with many extraordinary poets, at universities in Halifax, and at the Banff Centre. Her debut book of poems, Salt Fires (Pottersfield, 2018) follows on two chapbooks, Silence and Sable Island Fieldnotes. In 2013-14, through their Humanities-HEALS program, she was Artist in Residence (Writing) at Dalhousie University’s Medical School.
Janet lives near Mahone Bay on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.
PUBLICATIONS
Barkhouse, Janet. The New Quarterly, Winter 2018. Three poems.
—. The Dalhousie Review, Spring 2017. Three poems.
—. “Mermaid“. Whispers of Mermaids and Wonderful Things: Children’s Poetry and Verse from Atlantic Canada. Ed. Sheree Fitch and Anne Hunt. Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2017.
—. Silence. Mahone Bay: Mid-Drumlin Press, 2015. Chapbook.
—. “Weir”. Galleon III. December 2014.
—. “Hung Jury, Sable Island.” Literary Review of Canada. Vol. 21, No. 1, January/February 2013. Poem.
—. “The Girls in the Snapshot.” Untying the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s. Ed. Lorri Neilsen Glenn. Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2013. Poem.
—. “Little Billy.” Room 34.3, 2011. Short story.
AWARDSAtlantic Writing Competition, 2007. Second prize, Poetry.