Janet Ruth Heller

My picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006), won a Book Sense Pick (2006), a Children’s Choices selection (2007), a Benjamin Franklin Award (2007), and a Gold Medal in the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards (2007). In 2009, How the Moon Regained Her Shape was one of five finalists for the Patricia Gallagher Picture Book Award given by the Oregon Reading Association. My poem "Wild Turkeys in Mississippi, May 16, 1863" won first prize in the literary journal Crucible's poetry contest and was published in the journal in spring 2015. My poetry book Traffic Stop was a semi-finalist in the 2010 chapbook competition held by Finishing Line Press. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed at the Fenton Village Players One Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011, in Fenton, Michigan. Primavera, a journal that I co-founded, has won awards from Chicago Women in Publishing and the Illinois Arts Council and grants from CCLM and the NEA. My poem "Moving In" won the Friends of Poetry annual contest for 1989 and was displayed in buses in Kalamazoo, Michigan. With the other winners, I gave a poetry reading at the Kalamazoo Art Center and videotaped a poetry reading for cable television. My poetry book manuscript was a Finalist for the Richard Snyder Memorial Poetry Prize given by Ashland Poetry Press, judged by Robert Phillips, in 2005.