Janet Preus is an award-winning journalist, songwriter, creative nonfiction writer and playwright. She’s directed dozens of plays, musicals and light opera and now reviews Twin Cities theater for www.howwastheshow.com.
She founded, produced, directed and sang with a vocal jazz ensemble that helped support A Center for the Arts, Fergus Falls, Minnesota. During that time, she also ran the theater program at the Fergus Falls Community College and taught English, speech and theater classes.
The other half of her work life has been in journalism as an on-air reporter for radio, news editor for a daily newspaper and currently as senior editor for Advanced Textiles Source and Specialty Fabrics Review.
She is an alumni member of the New Tuners Workshop in Chicago, where her show “Ever After...
Janet Preus is an award-winning journalist, songwriter, creative nonfiction writer and playwright. She’s directed dozens of plays, musicals and light opera and now reviews Twin Cities theater for www.howwastheshow.com.
She founded, produced, directed and sang with a vocal jazz ensemble that helped support A Center for the Arts, Fergus Falls, Minnesota. During that time, she also ran the theater program at the Fergus Falls Community College and taught English, speech and theater classes.
The other half of her work life has been in journalism as an on-air reporter for radio, news editor for a daily newspaper and currently as senior editor for Advanced Textiles Source and Specialty Fabrics Review.
She is an alumni member of the New Tuners Workshop in Chicago, where her show “Ever After” (composer/co-lyricist) was featured in the Stages Festival of New Musicals, and “Snip, Snap, Snute” received a public reading.
She has written for Nashville-based Church Musicals Inc., and spent quite a bit of time in Nashville, honing her skills with some of the best songwriters in the world.
She holds a Master of Liberal Arts degree from Minnesota State University, Moorhead, a Bachelor’s in English from Luther College, Decorah, Iowa, and a speech and theater major from Hamline University in St. Paul. She is the recipient of grants from the Jerome Foundation and the McKnight Foundation.
She is a member of The Minneapolis Writers Workshop, Dramatists Guild of America Inc., the Playwright’s Center, ASCAP and co-founder of the New Musical Theatre Exchange, Minneapolis.