Janet R. Kirchheimer
Biography
Janet R. Kirchheimer’s first collection of poems was about the Holocaust and her family, How To Spot One Of Us (2007). Her second poetry book, Seduction: Out of Eden, co-authored with Jaclyn Piudik, was published by Kelsay Books in 2022.
She is the producer of AFTER, a cinematic documentary in which contemporary poets perform about the Shoah and discuss the responsibility of art to respond to the Holocaust, www.after.film. Janet’s multimedia exhibit about daughters of Holocaust survivors, with photographer Aliza Augustine, showed at the Kean University Human Rights Institute Gallery in 2015.
A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared in journals including Atlanta Review, Potomac Review, Limestone, Connecticut Review, Kalliope, Mudfish, Common Ground Review, and in several online journals and anthologies, including The Forward and The Poet’s Quest for God. Her featured essays include “Make Your Selection, Please,” for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), and “Kristallnacht: How Will We Remember?” for The New York Jewish Week, and “Sometimes You Have to Walk Through the Door, Even if There is Blood on It” for The Wisdom Daily. Several of her poems have been translated into Russian, and she has given bilingual readings with a Russian-speaking poet at The New York City Public Library. Her chapter, “At the Water’s Edge: Poetry and the Holocaust” appeared in The Handbook of Psychoanalytic Holocaust Studies, edited by Dr. Ira Brenner, (Routledge, 2019).
A frequent speaker, she appeared at a Six-Word Memoir storytelling event at the Tenement Museum in New York City. She also spoke at “German-Speaking Jews and Their Lasting Impact on New York City”, co-sponsored by the Leo Baeck Institute and The Jewish Studies Center at Baruch College. Janet has taught and given readings at a variety of locales including Yeshiva University, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, ADL/Hidden Child Foundation, the Association of Jewish Family & Children’s Agencies, the JCC in Manhattan and Washington D.C., the Westover School, the YMCA, Hadassah, Left Bank Books, Bowery Poetry Club, KGB Bar, and Cornelia Street Café.
She teaches a virtual memoir writing workshop for seniors at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan, and she is a teaching fellow at Clal-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Additionally, Janet is a gold-star licensed New York City Sightseeing Guide, giving tours about the first Jewish community in North America founded in 1654, as well as a docent at Congregation Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in the City of New York.
Published Works
Seduction: Out of Eden; with co-author Jaclyn Piudik (Kelsay Books, 2022)
How to Spot One of Us (Clal, 2007)
Author Site
Links to Sample Works
Video Reading
Current Title
Education
Central Connecticut State University, BS Business Administration