Janet Elsbach

Janet Reich Elsbach’s chief interests in life include, but are not limited to: what’s for dinner tonight; what’s for dinner tomorrow; whether her children—some them near-grown now, and nearly flown the coop--are rested, fed, encouraged and aware; getting out of the grocery store with as much dignity and as little plastic packaging material as possible; assessing the real chances that we the people will come to our senses in time to save the bees, the oceans and the last vestiges of true democracy; and the very powerful and inspiring ways all of these things connect. She chronicles the collisions of these notions on her blog, A Raisin & A Porpoise.

A regular contributor to the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, her writing has appeared on Modern Loss, Manifest Station, Role/Reboot and Verily Magazine. She was born in New York City, and raised there and in the Berkshire Hills of Western Massachusetts, where she now lives and works and carries food in baskets all over the county.

She teaches writing and felting at Community Access to The Arts, a Berkshires non-profit serving up arts workshops to people with disabilities as a pathway to community change. Janet has a bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and a Master’s in Education from NYU; she can midwife the birth of a baby lamb in sub-zero weather (though she prefers a barn with lights), and for about 15 years was a lactation counselor (for humans and other animals).

Janet has a tiny little dog, trained as a therapy animal, and together they visit libraries, nursing homes and schools. She has a bigger dog, too, who is just in charge of being a dog, and she fosters for an area rescue in the misguided and kind of hilarious belief that this will prevent her from permanently acquiring a third canine.