(That would be the Oakland Hills, by the way. Not those ones in Hollywood. Nor the ones in Texas. Are we clear?)

Jan Steckel got a nice writeup yesterday in the Oakland Hills Examiner.

Jan is an extraordinary writer, and has been since at least high school; I've known her since junior high, when we were respectively just forming as wordsmiths, under the guidance of Carol Jago (and, fellow fact-checkers, Ms. Jago did teach at Lincoln Junior High before she transferred to Santa Monica High, so bite me; I studied under her at both places).

One of the interesting things about Jan Steckel is that despite her lyricism, she's not the least bit adverse to indulging the left side of her brain. Well, she did tell me once in the Samohi library (where she was actually researching something, and I was flitting about like an intellectual hummingbird, looking for everything I could lay my hands on by William Saroyan, who was IIRC that week's literary obsession) that she had "a love/hate relationship" with the world of mathematics.

"Oh," I replied. "Mine is just hate/hate." So much simpler.

But the fact that Steckel went on to earn an M.D.—and even practice, for a time, as a physician—shows a unusual level of comfort with the natural sciences. Above-average for a poet, I believe, though few statistics are available.

Anyway, she does amazing work that certainly deserves a wider audience.

Congratulations, Jan.

UPDATE: If Jan had written this, there wouldn't have been as many digressions. She also would have been able to slip something poignant in about the human experience. It would have made me cry. But I do not like to cry.

Steckel's Home Page
Steckel on Wikipedia
Woman-Stirred, a literary blog co-founded by Steckel—along with Merry Gangemi, Julie R. Enszer, and Nicki Hastie

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