Rhoda Marie Janzen Burton née Rhoda Marie Janzen is an American poet, academic and memoirist, best known for her memoir ''Mennonite in a Little Black Dress'' which was a finalist for a Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2010.

Early life and education

Janzen grew up in a

Mennonite Mennonites are groups of Anabaptist Christian church communities of denominations. The name is derived from the founder of the movement, Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland. Through his writings about Reformed Christianity during the Radi ...

household in

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...

as the daughter of a Mennonite pastor. In 1984 she graduated from

Fresno Pacific University Fresno Pacific University (FPU) is a private Christian university in Fresno, California. It was founded as the Pacific Bible Institute in 1944 by the Pacific District Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches. The university awarded its first Bac ...

with a bachelors in English literature. Following this she earned a

Masters of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

in creative writing from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

in Gainesville, Florida. She went on to earn an MA and a PhD from UCLA where she wrote her dissertation on American-British author

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

. She currently teaches at

Hope College Hope College is a private Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Michigan. It was originally opened in 1851 as the Pioneer School by Dutch immigrants four years after the community was first settled. The first freshman college class matricu ...

Holland, Michigan Holland is a city in the western region of the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on Lake Macatawa, which is fed by the Macatawa River (formerly known locally as the Black Ri ...

Memoirs

In 2006, Janzen's husband of 15 years left her for a man and a few days later she suffered serious injuries in a car accident. While on sabbatical from her teaching position, she went home to her Mennonite family in

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, to heal from these crises. These experiences are recounted in her memoir ''Mennonite in a Little Black Dress''. Her second memoir, ''Mennonite Meets Mr. Right'', tells the story of her experiences surviving breast cancer, becoming a stepmom, and attending her new husband's Pentecostal church. In addition to her memoir, Janzen is the author of ''Babel's Stair'', a collection of poetry.

Critical reception

Janzen's first memoir, ''Mennonite in a Little Black Dress,'' has received acclaim for its comedic elements and was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. The response from the Mennonite community, which it satirizes, has been mixed. Mennonite poet and scholar

Di Brandt Di Brandt (born 31 January 1952) (née Janzen) often stylized as di brandt, is a Canadian poet and scholar from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She became Winnipeg's first Poet Laureate in 2018. Life and career Brandt grew up in Reinland, a Mennonite farmin ...

found the memoir enjoyable and humorous but criticized the tone as "consistently flippant, breezy, and almost relentlessly 'upbeat,'" for a book about what in Brandt's opinions is about the very serious topics of self-identity and midlife crisis. In 2015, a

Goshen College Goshen College is a private Mennonite liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana. It was founded in 1894 as the Elkhart Institute of Science, Industry and the Arts, and is affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. The college is accredited by the High ...

professor, Ervin Beck, listed ''Mennonite in a Little Black Dress'' among what he labeled with ''

Peace Shall Destroy Many ''Peace Shall Destroy Many'' is the first novel by Canadian author Rudy Wiebe. The novel surrounds the lives of pacifist Mennonites in Saskatchewan during World War II. The book generated considerable controversy in the Canadian Mennonite communi ...

'' and others as the "canon of seven literary works by Mennonite authors writing about Mennonites have been regarded by many Mennonite readers as offensive." Beck claimed that these works were dismissed by some critics as "transgressive" or purposefully shocking to gain popularity, but that this "transgressive canon" still serves as an important work within the wider

Mennonite literature Mennonite literature emerged in the mid-to-late 20th century as both a literary movement and a distinct genre. Mennonite literature refers to literary works created by or about Mennonites. Definition Mennonite literature, in the modern sense, usua ...

movement.

Bibliography

* ''Babel's Stair'', Word Press, 2006 * ''Mennonite in a Little Black Dress'', Henry Holt and Co., 2009 * ''Mennonite Meets Mr. Right'', 2012

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Janzen, Rhoda Living people 21st-century American poets 21st-century American memoirists American Mennonites Hope College faculty Mennonite writers Mennonite humorists University of California, Los Angeles alumni Writers from North Dakota American women poets American women memoirists 21st-century American women writers 1963 births