Janine Kovac (she/hers) is a writer and former professional ballet dancer. She has been published in Salon, Writer’s Digest, Publishers Weekly, and elsewhere. Her memoir, SPINNING: CHOREOGRAPHY FOR COMING HOME was a winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards and a semi-finalist for the Publishers Weekly's BookLife Prize. Her second memoir THE NUTCRACKER CHRONICLES is forthcoming from She Writes Press in November 2024. Janine has been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook, Mesa Refuge, the Mineral School, and MacDowell. Her writing awards include the Elizabeth George Foundation Fellowship from Hedgebrook, the Gotham Writers Workshop BIPOC fellowship, the San Francisco Foundation/Nomadic Press Award for Nonfiction and the Calderwood Fellowship for Journalism from MacDowell. Janine is the recipient of the deGroot Foundation’s “Courage to Write/Writer of Note” grant for her novel-in-progress, PROPOSITION. Her fiction is fiscally sponsored by Fractured Atlas.