Hi, I’m Janis Bultman. I’m a writer—and so much more.

I grew up in San Jose, California, and I’ve lived in Berkeley, Venice (California), Manhattan, Chicago, Brooklyn, the suburbs of New Jersey, London (England), the suburbs of Portland (Oregon), and, lately, Iowa City-adjacent.

I got a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

I’ve worked as a teacher, reporter, editor, factchecker, and assistant of all kinds—for Sheptow Publishing, the Wall Street Transcript, American Baby Magazine, Rolling Stone Press, Forbes, and a multitude of temp agencies. I taught literature and writing at the University of Iowa, Kirkwood Community College, and Mount Mercy University.

I’m a serial volunteer. I co-founded a 501(c)(3) called Women Who Write and served as its director and president. I’ve given my time to the Cleft Lip and Palate Association at Great Ormond Street Hospital, Girl Scouts, West London School of Dance, Every Child Home, Patient Voice, CommUnity Crisis Services, National Suicide Lifeline, Iowa Master Gardeners, all my churches, and a family LLC near a beautiful Central California beach that includes a warehouse/workshop and caretaker’s residence. Currently, I’m a literacy volunteer.

I’m an accidental lawyer. My specialty is dissolution. I got a divorce that went on for a very long time. It got expensive, so I represented myself through multiple hearings and even an appeal. I almost always won. So, I know for a fact it’s not necessarily true that the person who represents herself has a fool for a client.

I’m a mom, a spouse (I got married again), and a dog mom.

I did all those things (and more), and I also wrote—first journalism and then fiction. My non-fiction has appeared in Darkroom Photography, Super-8 Filmaker, Moving Image, Photo District News, ArtMetro, Buddy, American Photographer, and Forbes.

My fiction has appeared in The Sun, The Massachusetts Review, San Jose Studies, Pacific Review, Belletrist Review, and Eureka Literary Magazine.

I published a book—Legacies: Interviews with Masters of Photography from Darkroom Photography Magazine.  It was a Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year in 2018.

A collection of short stories called Where Do You Think You’re Going? Who Do You Think You Are? was long listed for the 2025 Electric Book Award. I hope it finds a publisher soon.

I’m finishing a novel called One More Song About Moving Along.

I’ve received a New Jersey Arts Council Fellowship for Fiction and a Pushcart Prize nomination.

Check out my writing on these pages—or follow the links. Buy my book. Let me know what you think—about anything. I’d love to hear from you.

 

Read The Massachusetts Review’s “Ten Questions for Janis Bultman.”