Jan Epton Seale, writer and teacher, lives in the southern tip of Texas, just across the Rio Grande from Mexico. She is the author of a book of short stories, Airlift; a textbook, The Nuts-and-Bolts Guide to Writing Your Life Story; a book of essays, Homeland; nine children’s books; and six volumes of poetry, the latest The Wonder Is: New and Selected Poems 1974-2004.

Her writing has appeared in many magazines and newspapers including The Yale Review, Texas Monthly, The Chicago Tribune, and Writer’s Digest. Some anthologies including her work are Writing on the Wind, Let’s Hear It!, Red Boots and Attitude, If I Had My Life to Live Over, Cries of the Spirit, Mixed Voices, This Place in Memory, and Birds in the Hand.

In l982, Seale received a National Endowment for the Arts creative writing fellowship in poetry. Seven of her short stories were chosen in the P.E.N. Syndicated Fiction Awards from l983 to 1991. Her poetry has received the Kathryn Morris Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of Texas, and the Bill Burke Award and Dolly Sprunk Memorial Award from the New York Poetry Forum. Her stories and poems have been broadcast over National Public Radio.

Workshops and readings by Seale have taken place in Washington, Oregon, Oklahoma, Taos and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and in Texas in Dallas, Denton, Waco, Houston, Abilene, El Paso, Austin, and San Antonio, as well as many in the Rio Grande Valley.

For 16 years she was the South Texas editor of Texas Books in Review. Other editorial work includes serving as a founding editor of RiverSedge literary journal and as an editor of The Valley Land Fund pictorial volumes.

Seale was born in Pilot Point, Texas, graduated from Waxahachie High School, attended Baylor University, and received a B.A. from The University of Louisville and an M.A. from North Texas State University.

She taught English and creative writing at The University of Texas-Pan American and at North Texas State University. For a number of years, she has taught workshops in memoir writing, as well as creative writing, at the Museum of South Texas History in Edinburg. She has also taught at national conference centers such as Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Gemini Ink in San Antonio, and Mo Ranch in the Hill Country of Texas.

Seale is available for readings and for workshops in writing poetry, short fiction, and creative nonfiction. Besides these genre interests, she specializes in the subject areas of memoir, nature, age, spirituality, novice adult writing, and women’s lives. She is on the Speaker’s Bureau for Humanities Texas, speaking about the influence of personal stories on family life. She is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

Jan Seale and her husband Carl, a retired conductor and composer, have three grown sons and four grandsons.