AUTHOR EVENT

Meet Janis Robinson Daly, author of The Unlocked Path.

[The Unlocked Path]

An Examination and Celebration of Family History. How the secrets of our past can surprise, delight, educate and inspire the writing of a novel.

After a career in sales and marketing and raising two boys active in sports, right through the college level, I asked the age-old question, Now what? I didn’t spend long looking for my answer. I found it within the return hits from a genealogy search on my great-great-grandfather, William S. Peirce, Esquire. From FamousAmericans.net: He took an active part in founding the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia.

Inspired by that line, more research ensued, and a story and characters formed. The early graduates of the Woman’s Medical College have remained in the shadows. Their stories needed to be told. With a love of history, I balanced a need for authenticity and details with a flair to create emotional connections to fictional characters.

While my family has roots in Philadelphia, I am a Boston girl through and through, from my accent to the cans of baked beans in my pantry, to the New England Patriots flag that hangs over our driveway every fall. I grew up outside of Boston and remained in Massachusetts, graduating with a B.A. in Psychology from Wheaton College, at the time, an all-women’s college. At Wheaton, I developed a fond appreciation of the supportive relationships established between students, faculty, and alumnae and a heightened awareness of female-centric issues. Both directed my writing of The Unlocked Path.

With a plot and themes sketched, I enrolled in a creative writing course sponsored by Wesleyan University to hone my skills. Combining years of extensive research and feedback from writers’ conferences and a series of beta readers, I polished my manuscript and readied it for publication with Black Rose Writing.

Splitting my time between Cape Cod, New Hampshire, Florida and hotels along Route 95, a tablet became my Kindle library and desk, packed into a travel bag for reading and writing wherever I might land. My husband, along with our rescue pup, has willingly, and luckily, also embraced this nomadic lifestyle. More adventures beckon me to document other women in history whose stories need to be discovered.

Book Clubs: Participant in a local women’s group, advisor to several Facebook groups, guest facilitator for a library group, and resource for many with recommendations, tips, and ideas.

Professional Associations: Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Historical Novel Society, Cape Cod Writers Center