Janice Maxson - the Reluctant Downsizer
Janice Maxson grew up above—and in—a boisterously convivial pub in the north of England. She made the impromptu decision to move to the United States while shivering at a bus stop. She was trying to read an employment ad in the nursing press. A ferocious wind was blowing sleet and hail up the skirt of her uniform dress as the paper tried to flap out of her grasp. The ad read: "You can be in sunny Texas in six weeks."
She was.
Janice worked as a midwife, neonatal intensive care nurse, and hospice nurse.
When her only child went off to college, so did Janice. She graduated from San Francisco State University four months after her daughter graduated from a different university. Janice had tentatively floated the idea that they might go to the same university. Julia politely demurred.
Janice was awarded SFSUs Clarke-Gross Novel in Progress Award. Prior to that she was awarded two Marin Arts Council grants, one for the novel and a second for a screenplay based on the novel. She was also an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito and an artist in residence at Norcroft in Minnesota.
She quit her fourth nursing career as a school nurse in Portland, Oregon, after inadvertently falling in love with her adorable four-and-a-half pound grand-preemie . When not writing, she hangs out with the grandkiddos. They divide their time between human wheelbarrow races, climbing the indoor play structure at old MacDonald’s, and reading. They all prefer subversive literature. Current favorite books are: The Great Granny Robbery by Rob Lewis and The Twits by Roald Dahl. The Denis Manton book Wolf Comes to Town gets an honorable mention.
Janice has moved house multiple times, retired three times and downsized twice. This qualifies her as either an expert or an idiot. She has contemplated downsizing to an even tinier house, but her husband assures her, “That’s not happening in this lifetime.”