Cirrus@Austlit

Janeen Brian was educated at Hopetoun School, Brighton (1952-53), Brighton Primary School (1954-60), and Brighton High School (1960-64), then trained as a teacher at Wattle Park Teachers' College (1965-66). She spent over twenty years teaching a variety of ages and subject areas, including as a junior primary and primary teacher, a teacher-librarian, a drama teacher, a language teacher to mature-age Indigenous Australian students, and a demonstration teacher for student teachers, before becoming a free-lance writer.

She was a member of Patch Theatre (the professional children's theatre) from 1980 to 1984, and in 1984 toured to the far north of SA to the Aboriginal settlements of Fregon, Amata, Ernabella and Indulkna, Alice Springs. As a member of "Amazing Holmes", she has taken part in dramatised readings of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, presented in restaurants and wineries. She has also worked for over twenty years on radio and television commercials. She spent 6 months writing and presenting comedy on Radio 5UV. In 1994-1995, she was a storyteller for Fairy Bay, a shop dealing with fairies and folklore.

As well as the creative writing listed on AustLit, she has written journal articles for a number of periodicals, and has written books for children on a variety of subjects including natural landforms, rescues and making masks. She has had stories, poems and plays published in Australia and the USA, and has written TV scripts for the children's show Here's Humphrey and a script for the Adelaide Women's & Children's Hospital. She has had poems read on Radio 5UV.

In 1987, she won an Ian Mudie Award for her article "The Dreaming Dying", and in 1991 "Dispossession" was Commended by the Casino Beef Week Promotions and Casino Writers' Group. Also in 1991 in the Coolum & Interstate Writers' Association, her "Emergency" was Highly Commended. In the Maryborough Writers' Group Golden Wattle Festival (1991), her short story "Spanish Queen" and her poem "Ward 5" were commended. "Ward 5'' came second in the Eaglehawk & Dahlia Festival Awards 1991. Her information book PILAWUK - When I Was Young won Honour Book in the Children's Book Council book awards for 1997, and was shortlisted in the Eve Pownall Award for Information Books. She won 1st prize in the Children's Story Section in 1997 for her story, "Pegasus". Her non-fiction books for children, Max Colwell and Maria Donato, were commended in Equal Opportunity Achievement Awards 1999 in recognition of the International Year of the Older Person. Her children's story "Small Frog, Balong" was Highly Commended in Midlands Literary Competition 1999, and her poem "Siren Rivers" was Highly Commended in the Gawler Poetry Competition 2000.