Author, Publisher, and Former Personal Diarist to President Clinton.

Janis F. Kearney attended Gould High School, then attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She received a B.A. in Journalism, with a minor in English. Janis hails from the southeastern edge of Arkansas and grew up with the Mississippi/ Louisiana accents from her well-traveled father, and her mother, from southwest Arkansas.

Janis learned to appreciate Louisiana- tinged desserts from her father’s jelly-rolls, caramel cakes, butter rolls and raisin bread, and from her mother, Ethel’s lemon and coconut cakes, sweet potato pies, and teacakes. Her mother cooked just about anything moving to feed all 18 of us. Janis recalls biscuits that melted in her mouth and Ethel’s Sunday morning fried chicken. In the kitchen, Janis finds the very same
peace and tranquility her mother enjoyed. “The kitchen is where I feel my mother’s presence most, hear her voice and recall her beautiful singing I woke to each and every morning.”

Janis worked seven years in Arkansas state government before taking over as Managing Director of the Arkansas State Press newspaper, founded by civil right leader Daisy Gatson Bates. Janis purchased the newspaper in 1988.

She served briefly in the Clinton White House Media Affairs department before being appointed as Assistant Administrator and Director of Public Communications for the U.S. Small Business Administration. For the last five years of the Clinton Administration, she served as Personal Diarist to President William J. Clinton.

Janis began her career as writer and publisher in 2001 in Chicago. Today her life includes writing, serving as founder and publisher of WOW! Publishing, and as president of Celebrate! Maya Project, a nonprofit serving youth of the Arkansas Delta.