Jan M. Flynn has done a number of things for a living. Some she’s done well, and some she’s lucky to have survived. She has worked as a stage and television actor, a middle school English and drama teacher, a specialty hardwoods store owner — a job she inherited when her first husband died suddenly — and as state director of a national non-profit health organization. Before all that she waited on many tables. At one point she performed in a theme park where she rode a camel, a water buffalo, a Brahma bull, and a temperamental llama. She’s also gotten herself involved in extracurricular activities: as a docent at the Los Angeles Zoo; a counselor on a crisis hotline; and a board member of a horse rescue in Calistoga, California. She served for nine years as a member of the City Council of the small town of Bradbury in Southern California, which included two terms as Mayor.

So it makes complete sense that she is now a writer. Her short fiction has won First Place and Honorable Mention in Writer’s Digest international contests. Her other short fiction appears in literary magazines and journals including Writers Digest online, The Binnacle, Midnight Circus, and Noyo River Review. Her short stories have also been published in anthologies including First Press, Meritage, and Into the Woods.

An excerpt from her novel THE MOON RAN AFTER HER, based on the experiences of women in her extended family who survived the Armenian Genocide, won first place in the Novel division of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference. For more on how that book came to be, see “Why I Wrote the Book.” Jan is represented by Helen Adams of Zimmermann Literary in New York.

Jan now lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband J. Michael Flynn, an actor and artist, and their patient dog Molly. Jan is wildly proud of her two adult sons, so don’t get her started.

When she’s not writing, she’s usually reading. In spare moments she hikes, practices yoga, tries to keep plants alive, makes way too much food, plots adventures, and enjoys unintentionally hilarious Amazon reviews.