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About the Author

About Jean Michelle Miernik 

I am a heavy user of my local library with special interests in literary fiction and history. I've been writing and rewriting novels since my 20s, and I plan to seek an agent for my current work, Leirah and the Wild Man. I have participated in writing critique groups for over 10 years and attended many conferences and other events by Capital City Writers, Rally of Writers, and NaNoWriMo.

I graduated from Kalamazoo College, where I studied psychology and classical mythology. I studied abroad in Rome and took opportunities to explore the rich history of other cities such as Florence, Venice, and Athens.

watching a Viking longship burning reenactment, 2017

I have worked in nonprofit communications since 2006, and I share my life with a badass husband, an adorable daughter, and a tortoiseshell cat whose middle name is MurderMittens.



I shall live badly if I do not write,
and I shall write badly if I do not live.
~FRANÇOISE SAGAN

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35 Great Things About Turning 35

The prime of life starts at 35! It's the best-kept secret from younger people, but your 35th birthday is a major cause for celebration. For mine, I have made my own listicle of 35 reasons why experts agree that 35 is the best age to be:
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Happy Spring Awakening of the Rusalki!

The water spirits demand hard-boiled eggs.


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My family will be baking bread and boiling and decorating eggs, you know, just in case. We do live very close to a river. And traditions are important.

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The Golden Moments

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. -George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) 

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My Alpha

It turns out my husband is a fantastic alpha reader. Who knew? We've been married for 13 years and have known each other for 21. And last weekend was the first time I ever had him alpha read for me. Turns out he's the best creative partner I could ever hope for and that he still has the ability to surprise me with hidden talents and acts of love.

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My Parents Bought a House in My Neighborhood

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We're All Gonna Die, So.

Happy All Saints, All Souls, Samhain, Day of the Dead, Diwali, or other festival of mortality! We're all gonna die, so let's love it up while we're together.

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Ísbíltúr: When It's Too Hot for Hygge

October is here! It's time for sweaters and crackling fires and pumpkin pie and... a climate crisis heat wave. I just got out all my knits and candles and squishy throw blankets, only to endure a couple of swampy, Florida-hot days. In October. In Michigan.

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No matter the season or th…
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I Have Created Something!

I have completed (and rewritten and revised and revised again and edited) an epic historical dark thriller. I have written a subversive Parsival tale in contemporary style, narrated by a a teenage orphan girl of unknown heritage, raised by a hermit of unknown origin, with no particular religion, certain race, or coherent social class, a girl who seeks identity and meaning along her adventures with assorted outcasts, misfits, criminals, and trailblazers. It's a queer, multicultural, interracial, boundary-blurring brick of densely woven subplots and big themes glued together with tears and profanity and bestial love. In other words, I have produced the kind of Byzantine journey saga that only the Millennial alumnus of an urban American public school with both gang violence and a celebrated AP program could have written.

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In a World of Calvins, Be a Hobbes!

My favorite season is here, and I'm taking a short break from working on my book to bask in the joys of fall. Beautiful autumn days are too precious to waste! I'm renewing my vow to be a Hobbes as part of my 2019 mantra to Be Bestial.


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Call it a resolution, a Phrase of the Year, a slogan, a motto, a mantra. Whatever. This is my battle cry, my howl, my declaration of love for the final year of this tempest-tossed decade. This is my medicine, to be taken by myself and offered to anyone else who could use the same antidote to our zeitgeist of vapid soullessness and cynical waste.


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