“My Writing, My Life, My Bicentennial”

Welcome to 2026, a new year of new projects and new challenges. A year I plan to be as busy as I was in 2025, when I adopted a second pen name (Evie Kelley), published two new books, and released the entire Beryl Blue, Time Cop time travel adventure series in audio, including the prequel, The Titanic Time Heist and the sequel short, The Suitcase.

Now, let me assure you, this impressive output was not due to me being an overarching Energizer Bunny. My busy-busy-busy busyness then, and now, is fueled by the new perspective a cancer diagnosis nearly three years ago has given me. I’ve put aside my “will get around to it someday” attitude in favor of “no time like the present” to get stuff done.

I’d been writing seriously for publication for over twenty years when I heard that C-word. In that time, I’d built up a spectacularly wordy pile of completed, half-done, and slightly-more-than-an-idea manuscripts, spanning an array of genres. I figured, rather than let those stories sit collecting cyber dust as I tried to land a new agent or waited for The Call from one of the major publishers, why not publish them myself?

The result became my most personal book, My Bicentennial. Loosely based on my senior year in high school, the story revolves around Massachusetts high-school senior Deidre Daly, who’s always been told “thin is in” and she is out. As the Bicentennial year 1976 begins, she decides she’s had enough and sets out to change how she looks. Surely “getting skinny” will land her a date to the prom and she’ll finally fit in with the popular crowd whose lives are as perfect and problem-free as hers is  a disaster.

Writing My Bicentennial gave me a chance to revisit 1976 events like Jimmy Carter on the campaign trail, the trial of poor-little-rich-girl-turned-revolutionary Patty Hearst, and the energy crisis that hiked gas prices to a steep 59–cents a gallon. I rewatched Taxi Driver and All the President’s Men, danced that hot new dance, The Hustle, and listened to Top 40 hits like “Afternoon Delight” and “Jive Talkin’” (though I drew the line at a re-listen of the Bay City Rollers’ oeuvre – been there, done that).

And, of course, I got to look back at the Bicentennial year.

Celebrations of America’s 200th birthday were everywhere. Flags and floats, parades and pageants, and a slew of products slathered in red, white, and blue and on sale at the local Woolworths. TV’s “Bicentennial Minute” gave us sixty seconds of Revolutionary War history broadcast during episodes of The Waltons, Hawaii 5-0, and that new sitcom, Laverne & Shirley.

My sister Carol and I, the most fashionable dames at the re-enactment

There were reenactments too. Most memorable for me was when my whole family trucked up to Lincoln Plaza on a frigid January day to watch a crew of re-enactors pretending to be Henry Knox and his men march by, transporting British cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga to Boston.

I had the most fun with the styles of the time – hip-hugger jeans, body suits, loud sport coats, and blouses, skirts, and dresses in bright, bold colors that could hurt your eyes. Even my geriatric party girl grandma and her friend Kay got in on the far-out fashions of the day.

Ask your doctor if a mumu is right for you.

And then there were the shoes. Each section of the book opens with an illustration celebrating the footwear styles of the day, starting with Deidre and her much-loved platform shoes that almost become a character in the story.

I weave all of the above into My Bicentennial, giving Deidre’s world texture, authenticity, and a historical twist. But I never bog down the narrative with details. I keep the story focused on Deidre and her journey, on the tale of a girl with the misguided belief that she need only change herself on the outside to fix her problems and find happiness. A theme relevant to any high-school kid, in any time period.

One thing I discovered during my long, strange trip to 1976 – I like writing young adult characters. I like crafting stories of teens struggling to understand themselves and their world, and even fighting to fix it. That fight to make their voices heard is the driving force behind my next book, The Nascent Bloom: Book 1 Caught,  a YA sci-fi suspense that kicks off a new series.

I’ll leave you now with a health update: nearly 3 years after my cancer surgery, I’m doing well. I’ve heard the debate over saying I have cancer or I had cancer when talking about that bastard of a disease. I prefer the term living with cancer. As in, I’m not letting it stop me or even slow me down.

I’m living. And writing. Creating amazing worlds, whether past, present, or in a galaxy far, far away. Writing action scenes and quiet moments and feisty gals battling bad guys and bantering with good guys as they grow and learn and finally figure out who they are.   I hope you will join me on this journey.

Biography:  Bio Janet & Evie:  Author Janet Raye Stevens writes romantic suspense, historical mysteries that include the Daphne du Maurier Award-winning WWII-set suspense, A Moment After Dark, and the fun, funny, and occasionally heartbreaking Beryl Blue, Time Cop time-travel adventures. Writing as Evie Kelley, she’s just released the young adult sci-fi suspense The Nascent Bloom: Book 1 Caught, a Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalist and Top Pick, as well as the coming-of-age novel My Bicentennial, set in the 1970s era of mood rings, platform shoes, and the eternal debate of who’s cuter, Starsky or Hutch. A mom, former reporter, and old movie buff who’s seen the film Casablanca more than 100 times, Janet/Evie lives, writes, and drinks copious amounts of tea at her home in central MA.