R. Janet Walraven

R. Janet Walraven, M.Ed., is a retired 35-year teacher, K-12. She is passionate about writing, gardening, children of all ages, art, Ravens and Chiefs football teams, and collecting ornamental hedgehogs from around the world. She writes in various genres. Janet received a 2001 Southwest Writers award for Mainstream Short Story, A Deeper Wave. This gave her the confidence and incentive to continue writing. Connect for Classroom Success won a Silver Award with Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards (2022). Rainbow of Promise: A World War II Romance won The Loyal Lyre Award (2019, Historical Fiction). Hector and Heloise in Paris (Rainbird and BooksShelf awards 2022) is her first children’s book, encouraging children of all ages to visit the Louvre and great museums of the world. Her latest book is Liam: The Boy Who Saw the World Upside Down (Narrative Non-Fiction, 2023). Janet enjoys meeting readers at book signings and traveling in Europe, Canada, and Mexico. She has three essays posted on Our Grandfathers’ Grain Elevators website. Having moved 79 times in her life, she has decided to call New Mexico her home. She and her partner, Mal Johnson, her best critic and support, love adventures in The Land of Enchantment.  In the meantime, Janet is writing a prequel to Rainbow of Promise about her Volga German grandparents’ love story and emigration to America in 1912. Her continued Works In Progress (WIP) are poetry and a short story anthology.