Interview with Jane Warren

Jane Baird Warren is a first-generation Canadian with fresh-off-the-boat parents. Literally! Her father came on a boat from Norway and her mother from Scotland. Jane grew up surrounded by a rich and often confusing blend of accents and began collecting new words like some kids collect action figures. At nine she read the dictionary front to back and announced she was going to be a spelunker because she like the word.

Jane left Canada in 1998. For twenty years she travelled extensively in Europe, Scandinavia, the Middle East and Asia as well as South America and Africa. During her travels she completed an MFA in Creative Writing (she loves writing on planes and trains). Jane also has a B.Ed. and a BPE and has worked as a teacher, personal trainer, and coach. She currently volunteers as a developmental editor for emerging writers. Jane has been featured on CBC radio and has published short fiction and poetry in more than a dozen literary magazines in North America and the UK. She is represented by Elizabeth Bennett at Transatlantic Literary Agency.

In her fiction and in real life, Jane is fascinated by people — the good ones, the bad ones, and the ones who are ugly inside — but what she values most in both worlds is kindness and courage. She is currently obsessed with the notion of family secrets and how uncovering the truth changes how kids (adults, too!) see and define themselves. She has ridiculous memory for trivia, which she'd always believed was the most useless superpower a girl could have. Until she started writing.

Her new middle grad… Read More