Janine Joseph

author of "Driving without a License" and librettist of "What Winds They Were: The Case of Emeline"

December 7, 2016

Janine Joseph was born and raised in the Philippines and Southern California. She is the author of "Driving without a License," winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize. Her poems and essays have appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Best New Poets, Best American Experimental Writing, Zócalo Public Square, VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day series, and elsewhere. Her commissioned libretti for the Houston Grand Opera/HGOco include "What Wings They Were: The Case of Emeline," "On This Muddy Water: Voices from the Houston Ship Channel," and "From My Mother's Mother." Janine's honors include a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, a Kundiman Fellowship, an Inprint/Barthelme Fellowship in Poetry, a Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center Fellowship for Collaboration Among the Arts, a PAWA Manuel G. Flores Prize, an Academy of American Poets prize, a Howard Nemerov Poetry scholarship from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and a Robert M. Hogge Teaching Award. In addition to teaching in university settings, Janine has taught creative writing in the community with Writers in the Schools, Wonderworks Houston, Community-Word Project, and the Starworks Foundation.

The best way to hide is in plain sight. In "Driving without a License," a politically-charged and candid debut, we follow the chronicles of an undocumented immigrant from the Philippines over a twenty-year span as she grows up in the foreign and forbidding landscape of America.

Based on a true Houston story from the 1840s, "What Wings They Were: The Case of Emeline" tells the story of Emeline, a young African American woman who successfully sued the man who was unlawfully holding her and her two children as slaves and won the case – thus securing their freedom. Peter Gray, the young lawyer who represented Emeline, went on to found what is now known as the Baker Botts law firm in Houston, TX. This amazing tale of courage and justice, recently discovered in the court archives by State District Judge Mark Davidson, was transformed into an original 40-minute English-language chamber opera by Houston-based composer John L. Cornelius II, librettist Janine Joseph, and director Eileen Morris. "What Wings They Were" debuted in May 2016 for a total of 13 performances.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2017-honorees-b/janine-joseph

Last Updated: 12 January 2022