- James Janko
- http://www.jamesjanko.com/
- James Janko is the author of three award-winning novels and several award-winning short stories. His most recent novel, WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2022. Maxine Hong Kingston writes: “WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT is like looking inside a snow globe, and seeing a country town in America’s heartland at Christmastime…Janko’s miraculous writing connects us readers to those people in Orville, [Illinois] and all of us to all others. Every good thing we do, and every bad, affects the whole world.” Midwest Book Review: “With its theme of prejudice, privilege and power in Midwest America, WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT is a timely (given the present and pressing social issues of being Black in America) and a deftly crafted novel by an author with a genuine flair for revealing the dramatic in the mundane..." Albuquerque Journal: "James Janko’s WHAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT is an enticing work of fiction…As the title hints, the book deals with unspoken – indeed at times unspeakable – issues townspeople hardly whisper in public…The author’s power of language will magnetize the reader throughout.” Janko’s THE CLUBHOUSE THIEF (2018) won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Award for the Novel and was published by New Issues Poetry and Prose (Western Michigan University). Kirkus Reviews called the novel “a spirited vision of America and its national game” (baseball). Chicago Magazine, in “A Shut-ins Guide to Winter,” listed THE CLUBHOUSE THIEF as one of four books that could help Midwesterners through the season. An earlier novel, BUFFALO BOY AND GERONIMO, received wide critical acclaim and two awards: The Association of Asian American Studies Book Award and the Northern California Book Award for Fiction. The Los Angeles Times called BUFFALO BOY AND GERONIMO “a remarkably humanist novel.” The novel received a starred review from Kirkus Reviews, and won high praise from the the San Francisco Chronicle, Library Journal, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Hartford Courant, and Kyoto Journal, among others. Janko has been a flower vendor in New Orleans, a strawberry picker in Oregon, a teacher at City College of San Francisco, a truck driver during a Nebraska corn harvest, a taco driver in Chicago, a door-to-door carpet cleaning salesman, a combat medic in Viet Nam, a night watchman on Alcatraz Island, and so on. He has a B.S. in Conservation of Natural Resources from UC Berkeley and an M.A. in English from San Francisco State University.
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