RHODA JANZEN is an American poet and author of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010). She has also written Babel’s Stair, a collection of poems.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir rising out of Janzen’s experience of returning to her Mennonite family’s home after a personal crisis. Injured in a car wreck and recently left by her husband of fifteen years for a man he met on Gay.com, Janzen returned to her roots in Fresno, California to heal and find faith, love, and family again.

Janzen received her B.A. from Fresno Pacific University, an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Florida, Gainesville, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1994 and 1997 she was selected as the University of California Poet Laureate. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Gettysburg Review, and The Southern Review. 

Janzen is currently a professor at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she teaches English and creative writing.