Bio

Janet Wise was born in a small rural farming and ranching community in SW Nebraska. From the time when dreams can be remembered, she imagined a bigger life. Novels and stories in print or film were always a much loved avenue into a myriad of worlds.

Educated in fine arts, Janet’s interests shifted to social and political issues, and she began a twenty-year journey down a different path, first landing in the middle of law and politics in Washington, D.C. After spending two years with an international non-governmental organization focused on law and democracy, Janet left her desk job in the nation’s capital and joined their UN and USAID-funded field project in Cambodia. Four years living outside her home country, working with legal types from all over the world, trekking around SE Asia and the South Pacific, left an indelible mark.

Her first semi-permanent return home took her to San Francisco, California to work with a law and democracy international development firm managing projects in Central and South America.

Missing the expatriate life, she ventured back overseas to Delhi, India, where she would live and work on a USAID-funded country-wide education project for four and a half years. While there, Janet began writing her first novel, The Black Silk Road to be later published by Harper Collins India. But before then, Janet moved on to a U.S. Government-funded education project in Palestine (West Bank and Gaza). After Janet left Palestine, she spent five weeks in Italy, exploring, seeing, and tasting where her fictional protagonist would come to rest.

Janet went on to join the U.S. Government-funded field project that partnered with the UN to support the presidential and provincial council elections in Kabul, Afghanistan. Janet subsequently served on multiple U.S. Government-funded projects in Pakistan and Nepal.

Because the expatriate life frees the spirit to travel, Janet has done her share. In addition to having set foot in every state in the U.S. (except Alaska), she has explored over thirty countries in South and SE Asia, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, and Central America. Regardless of where she went, books and stories have always gone with her. And while she is an avid researcher, absorbing both historical and current affairs in non-fiction, she enjoys a wide variety of both literary and genre fiction.

Janet places her novels against unfolding current events – personalizing as only fiction can – but always the American telling the American story as it collides with that larger world. Janet has now returned home to Denver, Colorado where she writes full-time.