Janet Fitch(II)
- Writer
Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native. In
1978, she graduated from Reed College with a degree in history, and
studied Russian history at Keele University in England. After deciding
to write fiction, she began publishing short stories in literary
journals, briefly attended film school at USC, and worked as a
typesetter, proofreader, graphic artist, freelance journalist, and as
managing editor of American Film magazine, and the editor of The Mancos
Times Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Colorado. Fitch published her
first story in 1990, after twelve years of writing and hundreds of
rejections. Her short story `White Oleander' was named as a
distinguished story in Best American Short Stories 1994, and Fitch
developed the story into her first novel. The story of an adolescent
girl's travails in a series of Los Angeles foster homes after her
brilliant poet mother is incarcerated for murder, the book was chosen
as a featured selection of Oprah's Book Club, sold nearly a million
copies, and was developed into a 2001 movie. Fitch currently teaches
fiction writing privately in Los Angeles, where she lives with her
husband and daughter.
