Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Jane St. Clair Lives In A World Of Words

By Elsa Noel


She earned her journalism degree by working as a factory welder and cocktail waitress. She wrote more stories and children's books than she cares to remember and the internet is flooded with her non-fiction articles on every subject under the sun. Then she penned a suspense thriller, Walk Me To Midnight, around the hot controversial topic of assisted suicide and voila - Jane St. Clair's first novel propelled her way beyond midnight into shiny stardom.

This versatile and talented writer started her journalism career in the poverty-stricken ghettos of Chicago where she became the voice for those who had no voice. Having lost both parents and a sister to cancer in hospices, she has first-hand knowledge and experience of the plight of cancer patients on proverbial death row in these settings.

Losing her father, mother and sister to cancer in depressing hospice circumstances widened her outlook on the controversy of assisted suicide and involuntarily lead to her very first novel. The highly acclaimed Walk me to Midnight is a potent mixture of hair-raising suspense and actual social controversy in which Jane's personal antagonism against any form of assisted suicide is clearly portrayed.

She started her journalism career fighting for the underdog in Chicago's underworld before she joined main media corporations. She worked for Sesame Street in New York, Channel 11/PBS TV in Chicago and as reporter/photographer for daily and weekly newspapers in rural Indiana and Kentucky. As freelance website writer, she has written innumerable non-fiction articles about a wide variety of topics - including a popular series about bullies.

Jane reads just as extensively and compulsively as what she writes. Although she rates most books as average, she has great regard for the true masters such as Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Austen, Chekov and Truman Capote. The latter had a big influence on her writing career.

Her versatility is evident in the ease with which she masters different genres and media platforms. Children's books, essays and sentimental desert songs flow as easily from her hand as political speeches, financial guidelines, advertorials, press releases and hardcore national news reports. Apart from two non-fiction books on psychology and etiquette respectively, she also published numerous e-books on diverse topics such as ways to locate a lost cat and beauty tips for teenagers.

Jane's versatility and extensive general knowledge is clearly illustrated in the diverse subjects she write about. She seems to have no problem switching between imaginative stories for children to intricate controversial social topics, financial issues and medical conditions. Her sensitive blog musings about her desert home in Tucson, Arizona, called desert songs, speak to the heart and give readers a peek into the soul of this acclaimed artist.

Her work won many awards. Her true story about dogs, The Time We Lost Gigi, won the overall first prize in the international contest for true life short stories. A series of web articles she wrote about financial prowess, The Money Express, went viral on the internet and also won several national awards. But it was her first novel, written expertly from the heart about a topic close to her heart, that brought Jane the international recognition and fame that she deserves.




About the Author:



No comments: