Janet Hurley was born and raised in the Hudson Valley of upstate New York before coming south to Carolina (the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)for its undergraduate creative writing program. Though it took a while to replace “you guys” with “y’all”, she has lived in the south ever since, most recently in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western NC, where she and her husband David raised their daughter, Maren, and son, Liam.

After receiving an MFA in Creative Non-fiction from Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, in 2008, Janet published feature stories and profiles for North Carolina-based magazines, Our State and VERVE. She also ran a small business, True Ink, which provided creative opportunities for young writers.  In 2011, she co-founded Asheville Writers in the Schools and Community (AWITSC), a non-profit committed to racial equity and social change through the power of arts, culture and restorative self-expression. And, from 2013-2016, she taught creative non-fiction and writing for the media as an adjunct in the undergraduate writing program at Warren Wilson College. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic forced many transitions, including, fortunately, a re-focus on her own writing.

 Glove Shy: A Sister’s Reckoning is Janet’s first book-length publication. She lives in Asheville, NC with David and their dog, Wilson.