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. 

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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 a collector of 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 follows that she’s now a writer. 

 

Jan is represented by Helen Adams of Zimmermann Literary in New York.

 

Her short fiction has won First Place and Honorable Mentions in Writer’s Digest international contests. Her other short fiction appears in literary magazines including Toronto Journal, Writers Digest, The Binnacle, Midnight Circus, Noyo River Review, Bulls**t Lit, and Fourth Genre, and in several anthologies.

 

Her essays appear in HuffPost, Chicken Soup For The Soul, and she posts regularly on  Medium.com and at her Substack, “Sticking the Landing.” She produces a weekly blogcast, “Here’s A Thought” (for people who overthink). 

Jan now lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband J. Michael Flynn, an actor and artist, their domineering cat Bandit and their socially awkward dog Nora. 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.