December Artist Member of the Month

Congratulations to our December Artist Member of the Month, Janet Shirley Nodar!

Although she retired from journalism in late 2025, Janet Nodar will always be a writer. She says, “Ask me what I do, and I’ll give you a list of activities. Ask me what I am and there’s only one answer: I’m a writer.”

She was a devoted, even addicted, reader from early childhood, and this led straight to her vocation. “I was writing Nancy Drew fan fiction by second and third grade, and filling notebook after notebook with extremely heartfelt poetry as I got older,” she says.

Janet has published short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry. She also worked as a freelance reporter for several years, covering food, wine, movies, business and shipping for the Mobile Press Register, Mobile Bay, Business Alabama, and other publications. She earned a Masters in creative writing at USA in 2003, teaching English while in school and after. She enjoyed teaching but missed reporting and eventually went to work as a full-time journalist covering the global shipping industry and managing conference content for the shipping and supply chain-focused Journal of Commerce. After 20+ years, she retired in late 2025.

Now, her attention is turning back to creative writing. “The only thing I’m really interested in writing now is poetry,” she says. She’s led several sessions of the Mobile Arts Council’s new monthly poetry workshops, read during an Artwalk poetry session in November 2024, and published three poems in the recently released Emerald Coast Review.

Join us in celebrating all Janet contributes to our cultural landscape her in Mobile!