Authors Answer: Jane Ward
Authors Answer Q&A #595
Author interviews almost always focus on questions regarding an author’s latest publication (and that’s great because it’s how readers discover new books!) but sometimes it’s fun to ask authors to talk about their lives beyond the book they’ve just written. Authors Answer (started as a blog in 2020, moved onto Substack in 2025), is an attempt to give authors space to wax eloquent about the other influences on their writing. The questions posed here move beyond the formulaic classics like, “What books are on your nightstand?” or “What book inspired you to be a writer?” and even “You’re having a dinner party….which three authors (dead or alive) do you invite?” There are 20 standing questions. Authors pick FIVE that they want to answer.
Are you an author? Visit the Questions page to learn more about participating.
Today’s post features Jane Ward.
Jane Ward is the author of Hunger (Forge 2001), The Mosaic Artist (2011), and In the Aftermath (She Writes Press 2021). After graduating from Simmons College, she worked in the food and hospitality industry; later, she became a contributing writer to an online food magazine and a blogger and occasional host of cooking videos for an internet recipe resource affiliated with several regional newspapers. Most recently she has contributed book reviews to Story Circle and Mom Egg Review. She loves to travel, and to document her trips through travel photography. Jane lives in Ipswich, Massachusetts.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorjaneward/
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@authorjaneward
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janealessandriniward/
Are there particular films that have influenced your writing?
George Roy Hill’s A Little Romance (1979), starring Diane Lane and Laurence Olivier taught me that treating big emotions with a delicate hand was more affecting than employing over-the-top melodrama.
Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking? Do you listen to music while you write?
I admire good lyrics, no matter what musical package they come in. If I hear a particularly good line and it’s set perfectly to its music, it will stick with me for days and often push me to try harder to make my own writing the best it can be. But while writing, I only listen to birds singing, not my playlists.
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
I’m undereducated about WWI, and I wish I knew more. The death toll is shocking.
What’s your favorite comic strip or graphic novel?
Recently, I’ve been paging through Berlin by Jason Lutes, and its themes of rising fascism and political extremism are, sadly, topical.
What’s the oddest thing a reader has ever asked you?
At a book reading, one gentleman stood up and asked me if I’d had theater or elocution training because my voice projected so well.
Endnotes!
This newsletter is a passion project started by me, Elizabeth Rynecki, to try to help shine a light on new-to-me authors. I am also an author (and a documentary filmmaker and podcaster) and if you want to learn more about me, you can visit my website or read my personal newsletter, Ink Trails: A Chronicle in Creativity.
I’ve never made Authors Answer specific social media accounts, but you can find me on Instagram, Threads, and BlueSky.