Janet Shepperson
Literature
Janet Shepperson was born in Edinburgh, 1954. She studied English Literature at Aberdeen University and has worked as journalist, community services volunteer, administrative assistant and primary teacher. She has lived in Belfast since 1978.
After appearing in introduction series Trio 5 (1987), she published two pamphlets with Belfast’s Lapwing Press A Ring with a Black Stone (1989) and Madonna of the Spaces (1993). She debuted in 1995 with her first full collection The Aphrodite Stone (Salmon Poetry). Her second collection is Eve Complains To God (Lagan Press 2004).
Her poems are widely published in Ireland, England, Wales, the USA, Canada and Australia. A selection appears in the anthology Salmon: A Journey in Poetry (2007). Her translations of Carmen Firan’s Romanian poems appear in Sorescu’s Choice: Young Romanian Poets (2001).
She has also published short stories with two shortlisted for Hennessy Awards.
She has facilitated workshops for WEA, Queen’s University School of Lifelong Learning, the former Maze Prison, Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s ‘Writers in Schools’ scheme, Poetry in Motion, Creative Youth Partnerships, National Deaf Children’s Society and many others.