Background

Jan Clausen was born on May 23, 1950, in North Bend. She is a daughter of Victor H. and Phyllis I. Clausen.

Education

Jan Clausen studied at Reed College from 1967 to 1970. Then she entered the New School where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal arts and a Master of Arts degree in gender studies and feminist theory in 1996.

Career

Jan Clausen started her career as a co-founder and co-editor of Conditions magazine. In 1989 she became a part-time member of writing and literature facility at the New School for Social Research. In 1995 she became a director of the writing center. She also ran creative writing workshops for students attending the Columbia Scholastic Press Association spring conference from 1993 to 1997. Jan Clausen has given readings at various locations, including colleges, universities, libraries, and book stores. Her poetry and creative prose are widely published in journals and anthologies. Clausen's book reviews and literary journalism have appeared in Boston Review, Ms., The Nation, Poets & Writers, and The Women’s Review of Books. Currently, she teaches in the Goddard College MFA in Writing Program and at New York University.

One of her first books was Waking at the Bottom of the Dark, which was a collection of poems published in 1980. Her next book was a Mother, Sister, Daughter, Lover. In 1988 she wrote a novel called The Prosperine Papers that got good reviews from the critics. Clausen became a recipient of writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the ArtsBy 1987.

Clausen had established herself as a well-known lesbian activist, had published numerous works, and was openly involved in a lesbian relationship of more than a decade. However, as she recounts in her 1999 memoir Apples and Oranges: My Journey through Sexual Identity, during a 1987 trip to Nicaragua she met a man and began a romantic relationship that radically altered the life she had built. In 2014 she published a book Veiled Spill.

Achievements

• Jan Clausen is known as a teacher, writer, poet, and activist, who is famous for her books devoted to LGBT and fiction stories. Her poetry and creative prose are widely published in journals and anthologies. She got fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.
  
  

Works

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  • Apples & Oranges

    (Deeply felt, intensely thoughtful, gorgeously written, Ap...)

    1999
  • Waking at the bottom of the dark

    (Poems by writer influential in lesbian community during t...)

    1979
  • Veiled Spill: A Sequence

    (Poetry. LGBT Studies. Women's Studies. Begun in response ...)

    2014
  • Mother, sister, daughter, lover: Stories 1980
  • The Prosperine Papers 1988
  • Beyond Gay or Straight: Understanding Sexual Orientation 1996

Views

Quotations: "Who I am is not a noun, but a narrative."

Membership

Jan Clausen is a member of PEN International, National Writers Union, The Authors Guild and The Association of Writers & Writing Programs.

Connections

Jan Clausen has a relationship with Elly Bulkin and one ‘nonbiological’ daughter from her. However, during her trip to Nicaragua, Clausen began a romantic relationship with a man and that ruined her relationship with Elly Bulkin.

Father:

Victor H. Clausen

Mother:

Phyllis I. Clausen