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Janis Freegard

Goodreads Author

Born

in South Shields, The United Kingdom

Website

http://janisfreegard.com

Twitter

janisfreegard

Genre

Poetry, Literature & Fiction

Member Since

November 2008

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/janisfreegard

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Janis Freegard was born in South Shields, England, and spent part of her childhood in South Africa and Australia before her family settled in Aotearoa New Zealand when she was 12.

Her most recent publication is a short story collection: 'Wild, Wild Women', published by At The Bay| I Te Kokoru after she won a competition for the manuscript.

Her novel, 'The Year of Falling' was published by Makaro Press in 2015. Her poetry collections are 'Reading the Signs' (The Cuba Press, 2020), 'The Glass Rooster' (Auckland University Press, 2015), 'The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider' (Anomalous Press (US) 2013) and 'Kingdom Animalia: the Escapades of Linnaeus' (Auckland University Press, 2011). She is also a co-author of AUP New Poets 3 and is wide ...more

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Janis Freegard’s books

Average rating: 4.24 · 152 ratings · 26 reviews · 11 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Year of Falling 4.19 avg rating — 37 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tales for Canterbury: Survival, Hope, Future by J.C. Hart (Goodreads Author) (editor), Anna Caro (Goodreads Author) (editor), Simon Petrie (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.23 avg rating — 35 ratings — published 2011	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand by Michelle Elvy (Editor), Frankie McMillan (Editor), James Norcliffe (Editor) 4.06 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2018	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wild, Wild Women 4.19 avg rating — 16 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Glass Rooster 4.25 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2015 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Continuing Adventures of Alice Spider 4.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kingdom Animalia: The Escapades of Linnaeus 4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2011 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	AUP New Poets 3 by Janis Freegard (Goodreads Author), Katherine Liddy, Reihana Robinson really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 2008	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Reading the Signs it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fair Winds and Following Seas 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2025	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Janis Freegard's Blog

Feeling at Home

Next Thursday, the excellent Book Haven in Newtown is hosting an event where fabulous writers Mary McCallum, Stacey Teague, Becs Tetley and I will be talking about ‘Feeling at Home’ and reading some poems on the topic.

Thursday 25 June 2026

6:30pm

Book Haven, 160 Riddiford St

Newtown

Wellington

It’s a great topic and I’m really looking forward to it.

Outside my first home, with my m Read more of this blog post »

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Published on June 19, 2026 19:59

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Janis is Currently Reading

Janis is currently reading

A Kind of Shelter Whakaruru-taha: An anthology of new writing for a changed world

by Witi Ihimaera

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Oct 28, 2023 08:07PM

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Night Sky with Exit Wounds

by Ocean Vuong

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Jan 12, 2020 08:21PM

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On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

by Ocean Vuong

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Jan 12, 2020 08:21PM

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Janis’s Recent Updates

Janis has read a liminal gathering by Iona Winter	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 27, 2026 09:08PM · like
Janis has read Fair Winds and Following Seas by Janis Freegard (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jun 27, 2026 09:08PM · like
Janis rated a book it was amazing Dracula in the Colonies by Tim Jones (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A powerful new collection taking us from Grimsby to Antarctica, traversing family life, migration, politics, climate change and loss. This is honest, tender, funny and intelligent writing from a story-teller poet.
Jan 13, 2026 09:45PM · 1 like · like · see review

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Book Loving Kiwis: 2025 Kiwi Reads Challenge	51	89	Jan 02, 2026 06:22PM

Janis’s Quotes

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”
― Oscar Wilde

tags: comma, misattributed-gustave-flaubert, proofreading

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¡ POETRY ! — 22513 members — last activity Jul 17, 2026 05:50PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

Anomalous Press — 42 members — last activity Jul 13, 2016 01:06AM
Anomalous Press is an editorial collective interested in the diffusion of writing in the forms it can take. This group is to follow our Anomalous auth ...more

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