Janice Repka

I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My dad, Edward Frank Repka, was a television sales and repairman. My mom, Frances Repka, (formerly Butera) was a homemaker. They had eight kids. I was their seventh. I was raised in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, a predominately Italian/Polish blue-collar town. It was a lot like Hardingtown. I graduated from Carlynton High School.

My writing career began a few years later as a U.S. Army journalist in Fort Hood, Texas. I covered everything from chaplains to rattlesnake hunts for a weekly military newspaper. It was a remarkable experience.

After the Army, I returned to Pittsburgh and earned a B.A. in Journalism & Communications at Point Park University. During a magazine internship in New York City, I developed an interest in the law. In 1987, I earned a J.D. degree, cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.

I married, had children and practiced law for many years, but never lost the desire to be a writer. Then one day it hit me -- dodgeball! I started imagining what would happen if a shy, young boy suddenly found himself in the dodgeball capital of the world. I made up pie-throwing clowns, bicycle-riding poodles and a soccer-crazy trial court judge. Sometimes I would laugh so hard, it was difficult to type. The Stupendous Dodgeball Fiasco is my first book. If kids have half as much fun reading it as I had writing it, I’ll consider it a huge success.

In addition to writing middle grade fiction, I like to write short stories. My short stories have appeared in the Antietam Review and Writer’s Journal. Recently, I started a new chapter in my life by moving to Lousiania to pursue my Master of Fine Arts in Creative Fiction.