Following a bumpy ride along a checkered career path, I suddenly found myself retired in 2015–retired from my position as Curator of the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. From college days in the art world through crazed band years and even while Curator, I continued to love and to write fiction, so now I’m finding that more time to write allows me to put words and sentences together with a greater sense of joy and intent.
My short story collection, Collateral Regeneration, was a semi-finalist for the Eludia Award from Hidden River Arts. Collateral regeneration, the opposite of collateral damage, is healing that is incidental to the intended target, where non-participants are accidentally or unintentionally restored to sanity. In my stories I give voice to characters who’ve endured major crises that diverted the course of their lives. In their attempt to fight disillusionment and uncover meaning, they find they have come closer to revealing the questions underlying the answers the “normal” world dished out to them. And me. Reciprocally, these damaged characters with their individualistic and humorous interpretations of the world, lead me, as a writer, to examine the flaws in more conventional perceptions. Regardless of race, sex, or social class, these characters struggle to understand one another and, doing so uncover the joy in themselves. They are also, by implication, de-marginalizing themselves, un-victimizing themselves.
Besides the collection of short stories, I’m working on two novels:
- The Ninth Step, a crime novel about a vigilante assassin group from AA and an FBI agent who is sent to AA for her drinking, but stays to investigate the murders
- Sunlight Underground, a novel, about a mother’s reunion with her son thirty years after his adoption at birth. See first chapter online at http://www.tupeloquarterly.com/sunlight-underground-by-jan-schmidt/
Over the years, I’ve participated in a number of writing workshops, most recently with Eric Darton. Darton’s first novel Free City was critically acclaimed. His cultural history, Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center became a New York Times bestseller. Darton writes about a number of writers in that issue, including me: https://www.wittypartition.org/darton-intro.html
Recently, I had the great pleasure to work with dancer/choreographer/writer David Gordon, to edit his writing for the memoir portion of his archive, published on his website Archiveography at davidgordon.nyc.
In my spare time, I also take African Dance classes at Djoniba Dance and Drum Center. https://www.djoniba.com/
In the 1980s, I co-edited, with J.D. Rage, a literary magazine called Curare. I’m uploading these as I get them scanned. We held annual packed readings in Larry Jones Café above the Pyramid Club in the Lower East Side on Avenue A. Prior to the magazine, JD Rage and I had a punk band, with Ptr Kozlowski and Hazel. We played at CBGB’s, 7A, and other notorious NYC venues. Rant Records has MP3 files, check it out at http://www.rantrecords.com/
Check out my blogs from the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division at: https://www.nypl.org/blog/author/324
With Arthur Rivers, Dave Hall and François Bernadi, I wrote, produced, and directed a sitcom pilot, Welcome Home, starring Chuck Holland, Diane Spodarek , Octavia Harrell and Avonna Renee. With Molly McBride and Juan Barerra.
Check out the Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKZ91elLSt8&t=157s