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Jan Maher's writing credits include two novels, Heaven, Indiana and Earth As It Is; one-act plays Ismene and Intruders; Most Dangerous Women; and books for educators Most Dangerous Women: Bringing History to Life through Readers' Theater; and History in the Present Tense: Engaging Students through Inquiry and Action (co-authored with Douglas Selwyn). Also a collection of short stories: The Persistence of Memory and Other Stories (Feb 2020).
She holds a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies: Theater, Education, and Neuroscience. She most recently taught interdisciplinary seminars, education-related courses, and documentary studies at Burlington College at the undergraduate and graduate levels and is currently a senior scholar at the Institute for Ethics in Public Life, State University of New York at Plattburgh.
She lives with her husband Doug Selwyn in Greenfield, MA.
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A chance meeting at a carnival in Huntington 45 years ago is inspiration
for Jan Maher's first novel, "Heaven, Indiana." Maher, who lives in
Seattle, spent her first seven years in Huntington, where she was born.
"A main theme of the book is the way in which social and political
interaction affects us," Maher said during a telephone interview from
Heritage College in Seattle. She teaches educational methods, curriculum and
learning theory there and has written several plays, essays, and poetry.
Maher, 54, lived at the Huntington home of her maternal grandmother,
Louise Miller, from 1946 through 1952. The house was at 652 E. Market St. Jan
Maher's father, James Maher Jr., grew up in Marion, but moved to Huntington
after marrying Alberta Ruth Miller. Ruth Miller-Lang now lives in Chicago. James
Maher Jr. died in 1971 in Cincinnati.
While Maher bases "Heaven,
Indiana" on her meeting with the daughter of a worker at a carnival that
had made a stop at Hier's Park she said that incident is the only thing
autobiographical. "It's very hard to quantify a work of
fiction," the author said. "Fiction is a synthesis of everything. It's
a bit of what would happen if you put a certain element ...
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