Hi, I’m Jan…

Third House Editorial is owned and operated by yours truly.

I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest by a SFF-loving father and Hitchcock-loving mother, all of which I hold personally responsible for my affinity for the weird, fantastic, and spooky. That and Bill Nye the Science Guy, who may have single-handedly propelled my career in the hard sciences.

For the last fifteen years, I’ve been studying and working in the public health field, which took me, first, to London and then DC, where I’ve been ever since. Most recently, I’ve been fighting the good fight for my LGBTQ+ community, keeping the doors open for life-saving research and healthcare.

That said, pursuing a more ‘traditional’ career path had me busy for quite some time, and I didn’t rediscover my love for storytelling until the pandemic. Yes, judge me if you will, but I am one of those women who read ACOTAR and then made reading my entire personality.

But the real shift for me wasn’t so much reading as it was writing. Obsessively diving into stories again made me realize I had my own to tell, some of which had been living in my head for over a decade. So, I wrote a book. Then another.

It was through that process, particularly in finding my writing community, that I honed my love of the craft and helping others bring their stories to life. Today, I am a trusted beta reader and critique partner for published, agented, and emerging authors alike, and I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. Because, while I’ll always love writing, editing is where the magic happens.

Why Third House?

The idea behind the name came from astrology. And before you ask, no, I’m not super into signs and horoscopes and all that jazz, and I certainly don’t judge anyone who is. I simply think it’s a heck ton of fun, an interesting corner of the esoteric realm (all of which I find a heck ton of fun), and a useful tool for writing. I even built a magic system based on astrology for one of my novels, with my favorite of all the spells and powers being based in, you guessed it, the third house.

But rather than dive into the details of Mercury, Hermes, and Gemini, I’ll leave you with this: The third house is the home of language, communication, and wordplay. It can also encompass the things we do ‘by hand,’ like writing. So, considering my goal here is to help you tell the best story possible—focusing on how you communicate ideas and leverage language—the name seemed only fitting.