James Janko
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James Janko's Novels
Novelist, Poet, Veteran | Author of ‘The Clubhouse Thief’ and ‘What We Don’t Talk About’ | New book ‘The Wire-Walker’ out September 23, 2025
"I picture myself walking on a wire over our roofs, and up through the sky where the planes flew. Will they return? Will the sky remain quiet the rest of the day? Our prayers are often simple: Sky, be quiet. Please be quiet. Stay quiet. Mercy. Inshallah. None of us know what will happen in the sky or on earth. We are here, we are alive. Our day has begun."![]()
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—Amal Tuqan, in The Wire-Walker, by James Janko (forthcoming Sept. 2025)![]()
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#TheWireWalker #JamesJanko #AmalTuqan #Palestine #FictionNovels #Heartwarming
"I live on the first floor amid four stories of cousins. My grandfather and my mother and my twin brother and I have the bottom floor because Grandpa Saeed is old and was already old when he was shot in the leg in 2002. My family shares one room with sleeping mats and kitchen things, but we divide it in three with plywood and curtains. I sleep beside my mother. If not for the partition, I could reach out and touch the bed where my grandfather and my brother sleep. In the homes over us, there are babies and kids and aunts and uncles, and an orange cat named Handala watches over us from our roof."![]()
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—Amal Tuqan, in The Wire-Walker, by James Janko (forthcoming Sept. 2025)![]()
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@RegalHousePublishing![]()
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#TheWireWalker #JamesJanko #AmalTuqan #Palestine #FictionNovels #Heartwarming
"I would like to give all of Palestine the smells I love most: cardamom and coffee. These morning smells say to me, 'You’re alive, you’re still here, and so is your family.' My grandfather invites me to sip his coffee. No sugar, no honey. Black mud at the bottom of the cup."![]()
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—Amal Tuqan, in The Wire-Walker, by James Janko (forthcoming Sept. 2025)![]()
![]()
@RegalHousePublishing![]()
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#TheWireWalker #JamesJanko #AmalTuqan #Palestine #FictionNovels #Heartwarming
Two Poets Write on the Same Theme![]()
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From Howl by Allen Ginsberg (City Lights Books, 1956)![]()
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by/ madness, starving hysterical naked,/ dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn/ looking or an angry fix…”![]()
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In Forest of Noise, poems by Mosab Abu Toha (Alfred A. Knopp, 2024)![]()
“After Allen Ginsberg![]()
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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed in a tent,/ looking for water and diapers for kids;/ destroyed by bombs,/ a generation under the rubble/ of their bombed homes; I saw the best brains of my generation/ protruding from their slashed skulls.”
Several years ago, while visiting my hometown in rural Illinois, I read an article in the local newspaper about a circus in the Galilee for Israeli children and Palestinian children. The News-Tribune covers Illinois Valley news almost exclusively, so this article stood out. ![]()
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I’d never planned to write about Palestine or Israel. In the end, though, I write about what haunts me, what gets into my dreams and my waking, what refuses to go away.![]()
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@RegalHousePublishing![]()
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#TheWireWalker #JamesJanko #StoriesofHumanity #YaFiction #HeartwarmingReads