Date:         Fri, 7 Feb 1997 22:05:45 +0000
From: Jane Wanklin <jwanklin@ZAP.WWDC.COM>
Subject:      FILLER: Re-introduction

   It seems that i am one of the few who hasn't, over the past year
or so, done an introduction or re-introduction to all of you. With
the Internet growing in such leaps and bounds (sorry for the
shameless cliche, but this is not one of my more articulate
evenings), and Writers becoming so massive, it is really necessary to
give you all a "cyber-nudge", so to speak.
    Well, i am a well-seasoned (how's that for ducking the age
issue?), sloppily educated (i had a complete emotional breakdown
halfway through my third year at Toronto's York University) and
reasonably talented writer who, in actuality, got most of her "grist
fodder" from spending the better part of twenty years locked in "The
Asylum", which is my paternal grandmother's pet name for a
psychiatric facility. i think that nickname of hers gives the whole
experience a rather eerie, gothic feel that isn't half bad.
    After trying for years to get published, mothering five cats (not
all at the same time), running marathons to prove a fallacy that i
was somehow physically invincible, if not psychologically so),
adoring rock music and chasing after favourite musicians, the latest
of whom is Michael Stipe (that pursuit has lasted over fifteen years
now), i blew all my savings on a computer, wrote my quirky
autobiography in 1995 entitled, "Let Me Make It Good: A Chronicle Of
My Life With Borderline Personality Disorder", and got hooked up with
the Internet.
   Both of those events were good career moves, it turned out,
because on December 4th, 1996, my manuscript was accepted for
publication and, because of my "net surfing", i found Writers and a
group of warm, wonderful and staggeringly gifted writers.
    Life has been somewhat difficult, but i wouldn't change it for
anything. My relationship with my mother has vastly improved over the
years, i am hoping that, in the early spring, when the book comes
out, it will help someone who is crouching alone in frighteningly
dark and dangerous crawlspaces of the mind, and, though i am single
and childless, i have two of the best cats in the world to curl up
with at night.
   This seems to have swelled into a much larger entity than i had
anticipated, so, in the almost certain event that you all fall asleep
at your monitors, i shall close.
    Oh, but before i do, let me tell you that i am just returning to
Writers after being on "vacation" in the hospital for two and a half
months. So please give me time to get through all these subs and
things.
   IT'S GREAT TO BE BACK, GUYS!!!!!!

jane
"You're movin' through rough waters motel boy,
and swimming in your sleep.
How could I be so blind, mis-sighted,
not to see theres' something wounded deep?"
                           --- R.E.M.