Writer of slice-of-life essays and mysteries laced with what-ifs.
Sometimes haunting…often funny…always spiked with hope.
Jan Heidrich-Rice wrote her first paid piece for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Advice: Better to Give than to Get.” It spotlighted all the unsolicited advice that comes a woman’s way when she enters the world of motherhood.
After growing up in the Great Lakes state and graduating from Central Michigan University with a teaching degree, Jan moved with her husband to beautiful Boulder, Colorado, where they remained for twelve years. Eventually, the pull of extended family—and, in Jan’s case, the water—lured them to Georgia.
Disenchanted with the changes she experienced in teaching through the years, she returned to school to earn a Master’s degree in applied and creative writing from Kennesaw State University. Torn between a passion to create and a desire to help pay kids’ college tuition, Jan put her skills to work in the grants and resource development arena. She felt blessed to lend a voice to "work that matters." Yet one of her true passions—aside from her family, gardening, and the water—continued to be creative writing.
Through the years, in addition to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan’s work has appeared in Quilt Magazine, I Do for Brides, and The Atlanta Lawyer. Her short story “Murder on Lake Allatoona” was part of a Sisters in Crime anthology, Mystery, Atlanta Style, produced by Ladybug Press.
Today, she works as a full-time creative writer. Much of her writing focuses on family—almost always complex, often untraditional, and, inevitably, a beautiful mess. Her essays capture the wonder and humor of everyday life, at home and on the road, and her fiction often unwinds in small towns surrounded by lush lake settings, much like she experienced growing up in Michigan and now in Georgia.
A 2019 Hambidge Fellow, Jan is currently active in the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Atlanta Writers Association. She lives with her husband near Atlanta and enjoys spending time with friends and family, which includes three adult children and their partners, a grandson and a granddaughter, three grandpups, and four grandkits.
