About Me
If you’d like to contact me, please email: janlmayes@gmail.com. I will get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you for your patience.
I spent my childhood plotting to murder people who were “noisy” eaters, despite perfectly polite manners. I was over 30 years old before I discovered I have decreased sound tolerance including misophonia (sound hate or dislike), phonophobia (sound fear) and hyperacusis (sound pain). By that point, writing was an outlet for my feelings and overactive imagination.
My major anxiety and depression started during childhood. Writing stories and poems helped me survive my teen and adult years. In the 1980s at 20-something, life took a turn for the worse after a head injury from a car accident gave me severe tinnitus.
I became an audiologist, and eventually learned how to manage my distress. As I developed chronic pain, fatigue, and imbalance, writing helped me feel less useless. My path veered towards nonfiction books and quiet activism against preventable noise, especially after I took early retirement for health reasons. I’m a member of Speech-Language & Audiology Canada (retired status).
Writing dark disturbing fiction is my true love. I enjoy writing flash fiction or very short stories, and my first novel is in the works.
I share writing news on my blog, including excerpts. My horror stories are not suitable for young or sensitive readers, since they contain dark humour, violence, coarse language, and sometimes sexually suggestive content.
I live and write near metro Vancouver, in the Pacific Northwest of British Columbia, Canada. I acknowledge these are First Nations lands, and I respect the First Nations and Coast Salish ancestors of this place.
During me-time, I enjoy playing piano, deadheading in my garden, killing off characters, needlework, walking my dogs, napping with my cat, eating cookies, and reading, as should all right thinking people.
Writing Awards
2019 International Book Awards Finalist [Tinnitus Toolbox Hyperacusis Handbook]
2013 Eric Hoffer Award Winner [Tinnitus Treatment Toolbox]
Education
Masters in Audiology and Bachelor of Arts in Speech Sciences & Linguistics from University of British Columbia. Diploma in Adult Education from the British Columbia Institute of Techology.
Background
Clinical and occupational audiology including evaluations, counseling, noise risk assessments, hearing protection fitting, and prevention education. Special interests in tinnitus, decreased sound tolerance including hyperacusis, and noise risk to speech communication and disability access.
Extra Stuff
Books
I am an avid reader with eclectic taste. Usually, I prefer unreliable narrators, murder mysteries, horror, and paranormal fiction genres, especially zombies, dystopian futures, and fantasy worlds. My favourite authors include Margaret Atwood, Patrick Ness, Caleb Carr, Jodi Picoult, Richard Adams, Ron McLarty, and Minnette Walters. I’m on Goodreads to keep track of what I read, and I try do the Reading Challenge every year.
Music
My playlist mainly includes alternative, rock, and metal music, with a dash of country and classical thrown in. There is no opera or Celine Dion. My favourite artists and bands include Bryan Adams, Trooper, Meg Myers, Bring Me The Horizon, Radical Face, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Billy Joel, The Eagles, Lindsey Stirling, and Avatar the metal band.
Travel
I have enjoyed trips from rustic camping to Alaska cruises. In addition to touring my own province of Super Natural British Columbia, highlights in Canada include historical Quebec City, music fests in Montreal, and the wonderful hospitality and scenery of the Maritimes, especially New Brunswick. I’ve also loved trips to San Francisco for my honeymoon, seeing the original run of Cats on Broadway in New York City, white sand beaches of Barbados, exploring England from London to York, and searching for leprochauns and fae in Ireland.