I’m Jane Rowan, and I am delighted to be here on Hot Author. For over three decades I was a science professor at a private college, but I’ve always been a closet poet and avid journal-keeper, so I think my Inner Writer was there all along. From my experiences in healing, I’ve published numerous articles on the web, and the self-help booklet “Caring for the Child Within: A Manual for Grownups.” This booklet and my memoir, The River of Forgetting: A Memoir of Healing from Sexual Abuse, are available through my websites www.janerowan.com and www.riverofforgetting.com as well as through Amazon and other outlets. When I’m not writing, I love being out in the woods and observing wildlife, especially playful otters and herons.

Q: It’s rare today to find an author who does nothing but write for a living. Do you have a day job other than writing, and if so, what is it? What are some other jobs you’ve had in your life? Have they influenced/inspired your writing?

A: I’m fortunate to be retired—in fact, writing my memoir helped to induce me to go half-time and then to stop teaching altogether. Even though I loved teaching, it was time to move on. Now I live off a modest retirement income, but I have so much time for what I love to do. I’m tutoring in a GED program, writing poetry, painting abstract canvases, and spending time in meditation and in nature.

Q: What compelled you to write your first book?

A: Sheer gratitude for the way that my personal crisis opened up into opportunity. I was driving down the highway in Connecticut on the way to see my son in New York, feeling an upwelling of love and thankfulness, and it just came clear that I needed to write The River of Forgetting.

Q: Tell us briefly about your book.

A: The River of Forgetting covers a particular five-year period in my life, from the first creepy memory that surfaced and hinted at childhood abuse to the moment when I decided to write the book. It was a very turbulent time as I tried to understand whether my loving, eccentric family was also an abusive family. Naturally, I wanted to know exactly what had happened, so the book is partly “a detective story of the soul,” as one of my readers put it. While I encountered each new wave of doubt, mistrust, grief, and revulsion, I also had to live my regular life, teach, and care for my elderly mother. Creative writing and artwork came to be essential outlets – the expressions just poured out of me. Later, I went back to make a story out of it and create The River of Forgetting.

This is also a therapy story. So many people do heroic work every week in therapists’ offices all over the globe – uncovering painful pasts and integrating and learning to open their hearts and move on. My story is one of many, and I honor us all as I show the messiness of the process as well as the hope and joy: how difficult it is to really trust a therapist and allow her to walk through my soul, how wonderful it feels when this works so that I feel seen and whole.

Q: How did you feel the day you held the copy of your first book in your hands?

A: Holding the book in my hands was nothing compared to the thrill of seeing it on Amazon! At that point I knew I had truly launched it into the world for everyone to see.

Q: What type of music, if any, do you listen to while you write? Do you need the noise or the silence?

A: Silence! I need to hear the music of the words (I’m a poet as well as prose writer), and I need to listen inside for the exact emotional resonances of the scenes and the words. Music has its own propulsive power, not what I need.

Q: How do you balance out the writer’s life and the rest of life? Do you get up early? Stay up late? Ignore friends and family for certain periods of time?

A: Sometimes I need times of intense isolation to find the right voice. Then I do put out a call to friends and family that I will be unavailable for a few days or a week or so. I work in fits and starts. But I also try to keep several hours each morning free for creative work of one kind or another – narrative writing, poetry, or painting. If I don’t consistently clear space, I start to feel grouchy and bored.

Q: Where you have lived and what you have experienced can influence your writing in many ways. Are there any specific locations or experiences that have popped up in your books?

A: I grew up next to a salt river (an estuary) which is almost a character in my memoir. It is a real place that was a refuge for me as a child through long summer days. But it also becomes a metaphor for healing and growth. In the middle of the story, a dream of this river serves as a turning point, the beginning of deeper trust and buoyancy.

Q: What is your writing space like? Do you have a designated space? What does it look like? On the couch, laptop, desk? Music? Lighting? Typing? Handwriting?

A: I’m blessed with a sweet house in the woods and my living room is my all-purpose room. The floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the bird feeders and shrubs. I sit in my rocking chair with a mess of journals around me, or previous drafts, whatever stage I’m at, and I peck away at my laptop. I can’t imagine writing longhand any more. I had to transcribe tons of longhand journal entries while I was writing the memoir (which includes excerpts of journals). My writing is terrible – squinchy and unreadable – so I am delighted to type drafts and not have to squint at longhand any more.

Q: Is there anyone who has inspired, motivated, encouraged or supported your writing?

A: I’ve had so much encouragement from writing group leaders, peers, and friends. Even when The River of Forgetting was in its messy beginning stages, I was fortunate to find people who believed in it. My therapist was one of these. I know she’s a keen editor because over the years she sometimes helped me edit letters that were difficult and very emotional to write. Therefore I knew her support and appreciation of my writing was real.

Q: It’s one thing to write a book and another to edit it. How do you feel about the editing process? What was it like to edit your book?

A: I love it and I hate it. Craft is important to me. I’d still be editing The River of Forgetting if that were an option. I got a big thrill from becoming better at making dialogue sound real, and at finding the images to describe emotions and body sensations. I love finding the right words and knowing that I can improve my own writing.

I didn’t love making the necessary cuts to reduce the book from 125,000 to 83,000 words. I needed input from objective outsiders to show me where it was wordy. That was painful, but I’m glad I did it!

Use this space to tell us more about who you are. Anything you want your readers to know. Include information on where to find your books, any blogs you may have, or how a reader can learn more about you and writing.

I write a blog about living, healing, the Inner Child, and writing, Jane’s Inner Child Memoir Blog http://janechild.blogspot.com. You can also find more about me and resources on healing at two Websites: http://janerowan.com and http://riverofforgetting.com.

Find me on FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=606784746

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/riverforgetting