JanBonoBooks

09/03/2026

SATURDAY, Sept 5 in Long Beach!

08/28/2026

🍪 Yes, there will be cookies! 🍪

On Saturday, September 5th, from 10 AM to 2 PM, I will be on the BOLD patio (711 Pacific Ave. N in Long Beach) celebrating the release of my 19th book. 📚📚

I like to think of a book release as a birthday, and what’s a birthday without a PARTY??!! So come by and say “Hi!” (and have a cookie) and let’s talk about books and writing and telling stories on paper and other fun stuff. 🥳🥳

This book is called, “Two Cozies for Christmas,” and it’s two novellas included in one book, based on some “Hallmark-type” Christmas movie scripts I wrote. The movies haven’t been made (yet) but I’m still optimistic!

Hope to see you there! 💕💕
Jan

08/24/2026

I got an unsolicited book review in my email today… and I am in big time tears… THIS may be my favorite day EVER…

THE FREEDOM OF THE DAY

Hi, Jan,

I moved up "Freedom" on my TBR List this past weekend, and I can see why [another reviewer] was so enthusiastic. Your book is a strong affirmation of life... or of a life, with all its hopes, highs and heartbreaks. What a great exercise in remembering, serving both as a good story, but also as an example for readers who may wish to venture on their own journey down memory lane, reliving their moments of great beauty, tenderness, joy--as well as their own moments of tremendous loss, pain and uncertainty. Your book demonstrates the therapeutic value of such a very personal undertaking.

I was also struck how much it captures a quickly passing generation (ours). It sparked similar memories: of fathers smoking their cherry pipe to***co, of picking berries to earn money during the summer months, and of our largely unsupervised (and unsurveilled) childhoods--"Be home by dark!"--hard to imagine that kind of freedom for kids these days.

Congratulations! And thank you for sharing your story with us.

********************************

I am not crying (much), but I AM certainly speechless! 💕💕💕

08/09/2026

I think I’ll spend today READING!

07/26/2026

My 10th column since my restart in March. (Second and fourth Wednesdays) Do you know you can have an online subscription to the Observer for just $7 a month?

07/25/2026

STORYTIME!

Working title: Pass me a tinfoil hat!

A few days ago, I sent my author friend Pete the first page of a new book outline I’m working on via email. It’s about an artist I met when I lived in Longview in 1977. He set up his easel and painted scenes along Lake Sacajawea. He often played Swan Lake on his cassette recorder while he did so.

Today, Friday, at the Finn Festival, Pete and I had vendor booths clear across the room from each other, so we texted back and forth, and I stopped to speak with him in person on my trips back from the bathroom (It was a long 8-hour event!)

Mid-afternoon I decided I had enough battery power left in my phone for the day to scroll Facebook. Second scroll down a beautiful photo came up with music playing… it was a painting of a swan and the music was Swan Lake! Coincidence? Maybe…

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Shortly after that I was talking to the vendor next to me about the band that would kick off the series of 45-minute evening music events. I asked if she knew any of the band members in Brownsmead Flats. She did not.

I told her I was hired to teach in Long Beach on October 7, 1977, after Lurana Knick, now Lulu Heavenrich, had substituted for a few weeks and decided she’d rather just substitute than teach that class full time. I knew later she’d married a man named Ned, who then, and might still, play in that band…

Less than an hour later, a tall, nice-looking man came up to my booth, saw my name on all my books, and stuck out his hand… “You’re Jan?” he asked. I nodded and shook his hand. “I’m Ned Heavenrich… I believe you know my wife…”

OKAY, that was two very weird things in a very short period of time! Obviously, the conspiracy theories are true! Some supreme being (or perhaps Alexa? or Siri? or some government agency?) is reading our minds! Or tapping our phones! Or intercepting our emails!

Twice, in very specific ways, the Universe had manifested, in short order, what I had put my attention, energy, and focus on!

So now I’ll take this theory one step further and test it: Kevin Costner! Kevin Costner! Kevin Costner!

(Given my two previous examples, I’m really looking forward to the way this could play out!)

07/20/2026

THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY! July 24-25, 10-6, the Finnish-American Folk Festival in Naselle! A great festival with lots of storytellers and music and a great Tori (marketplace) in the gym! JanBonoBooks will be there with 18 different book titles to browse, half of them on a 1/3 off (get-them-while-they-last) sale! It’s time for summer reading! 📚📚📚

07/15/2026

I”d hate to say I’m having a lot of FUN writing my bimonthly column again after a 24 year absence… but I am! 🥳

06/20/2026