A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Janet Butler recently relocated to the Bay Area, Oakland, California after a career as EFL teacher, translator, and watercolor painter in central Italy, where she lived for many years. As a watercolor painter she was noticed by the Italian art critic Luciano Lepri, who invited her to be one of ten artists he selected for a three week show in Sienna, Italy, Porta dell'Arco Galleria, April, 2001; in June, 2003, she finished in the top 20 in a European juried art show, held in Castigion del Lago, Umbria; and in December, 2003, she was featured in The Artist's Magazine, Art Clinic.

While in Italy she collaborated with Dr. Romeo Giuli in the translation of his poetry from 1997 to 2003, and a selection of these poems was published by Solveig Publishing, Siena, Italy. After this collaboration, Ms. Butler decided to dedicate herself to her own creative writing, and she began writing her own poetry in 2004. Her poems were first published in the summer of 2004, and since then her poetry has been published in several editions of Scrivener's Pen, in FrontStreet Review, Ken*again, which also published four of her watercolors, Tilt (UK), Underground Window, ForPoetry, SubtleTea, The Surface, JMWW, Prose Toad, Underground Voices, Carnelian and others. She has also been selected as featured artist for Scrivener's Pen Volume 5, Issue 3 and her watercolors have been featured in Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Volume 9, No. 2, from British Columbia. Her poems and watercolors may be seen at: http://www.janetleebutler.com