Janice Steinberg

I grew up in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, which is less bucolic than it sounds; it’s a suburb of Milwaukee. Whitefish Bay is nonetheless charming. It’s right on Lake Michigan. Quiet streets, glorious autumns. One of my earliest memories is of standing with my mother in a cozy brick building that was at one time the public library. I think the cozy building later became the police department, which does give Whitefish Bay a sort of Mayberry vibe.

During college, I became a Californian. I got a B.A. and M.A. at the University of California-Irvine, and that’s where met my husband, Jack Cassidy. We spent a couple of years in Los Angeles and now live in San Diego. There was also a brief detour to Colorado, but we missed California so much that we took to watching “Starsky and Hutch” reruns for glimpses of L.A. “Look, there’s Lincoln Boulevard!” If you know Lincoln Boulevard in Venice, you know it is not renowned for its beauty. We were really homesick.

Like many people who are compelled to write, I’ve had a pastiche of jobs: urban planning, public relations, grant writing, journalism, editing, and teaching. For several years, I freelanced for Advertising Age, where I was known as Queen of the Sidebar. After paying lots of dues, I was able to focus on the work that I love: fiction writing and arts journalism. I’ve had five mystery novels published, and I cover dance (and sometimes theater) for the San Diego newspaper, the UT. Having my first character-driven novel, The Tin Horse, published by Random House, I feel like I’ve caught the brass ring.

My passions, besides writing and reading, are dance and Judaism.