The Wire-Walker

James Janko is the author of three award-winning novels. He learned to write on Alcatraz Island National Park where he worked alone as a nightwatchman for more than thirteen years (1979-1992). He read N. Scott Momaday, Maxine Hong Kingston, James Baldwin, Louise Erdrich, Walt Whitman, Garcí a Lorca, Grace Paley, Herman Melville, Annie Dillard, Michael Ondaatje, and many others. Over the years, word by word, Janko fell in love with language and learned to write.