STORIES AND COLLECTIONS

Janie's latest collection of short stories is now available on Amazon!

Award-winning author Janie Dempsey Watts shares her creative “mostly true” stories of growing up in the South, moving away to California, and finally returning home to live near her family farm in Northwest Georgia. Filled with historical vignettes, these nostalgic or humorous stories explore friends, family, farm life, her beloved okra, and travels to France and Sicily that inspire her writing.

A collection of short stories/non-fiction, Mothers, Sons, Beloved, and Other Strangers is available on Amazon!

Set in the South, California, and Europe, this book of fifteen stories features characters facing inner and outer journeys that often do not go as expected. Why did Sadie's mother run away? And when will she return? Must a teenage girl learn the truth about her daddy the hard way? Why must a bride's rehearsal dinner feel like a Hatfield-McCoy moment? Can a widow escape loneliness by commiserating? On a train ride in Belgium, can a mother and son trust a postcard salesman they meet? At a laundromat in Rome, Italy, what kind of trouble can a restless wife find?

In these tales, some humorous and some edgy, characters discover they do not really know those who are closest, yet a stranger may offer the gift of hope.

Essays / Non-Fiction

• Art Lessons (Chicken Soup for the Soul: Messages from Heaven, 2012)

• Outrageous Okra (Stories to Warm a Grandma's Heart, 2011)

• Famed Highwaymen Artists Have Deep Roots in Georgia (Georgia Backroads, 2011)

• Memories of Jackson's Elegant and Inviting Carmichael House (Georgia Backroads, 2009)

• Aphrodite's Mighty Appeal (Christian Science Monitor)

• Spring Cleaning (Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family)

• Une Tasse de The (Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover's Soul)

• Frosty Georgia Morning (Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul)             

• Southern Spirit (Chicken Soup for the Horse Lover's Soul II)                               

• Object of Our Affection (The Ultimate Gardener)

• Southernspeak (Georgia Backroads, winter 2008)

• Grandma's Okra (Georgia Backroads, fall 2008)                             

• Empty Nest Refilled (as found on boomerwomenspeak.com)                          

• Outrageous Okra (Guideposts Magazine, 2006)

• Fall Ritual (Georgia Backroads, 2006)

• Georgia Five (Georgia Backroads, 2010)

• Picture Hat (Project Keepsake, Native Ink Press, 2014)

Short Fiction

• Under Milkweed Leaves (Southern Women's Review, 2010)

• Hiatus (Blue Crow Magazine)

• Erice (finalist, William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition, 2004)

• Leaving Bruges (semi-finalist, William Faulkner Creative Writing Competition, 2005)

• River Run (published on Kindle, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DY9Z2W0)

• Backyard Messages (Southern Women's Review, 2010)

• Moon Ride: Summer, 1959 (A Tapestry of Voices, 2011)

• Rotten Apples (Southern Women's Review, 2014)

• Journey to Yanu (Southern Women's Review, 2014)

• Aunt Trish's Wedding Gift (Broken Petals, a short story collection, Jan-Carol Publishing, 2014)