Cheripko, Jan

Jan is a publicity and promotions specialist for Boyds Mills Press. He is also an author who writes from personal experience. His involvement with teeangers at risk, his own high school football days, and his love of literature combine to make his most recent novel, Imitate the Tiger, a work that breaks the usual stereotypes of sports plots and characterization.Jan also teaches English at the Family School, a private school for at-risk teenagers near Hancock, New York. He speaks to students, educators, and parents throughout the country about writing, literature, heroes, and at-risk students. "I tell my students," Jan says, "what a mentor once told me: 'Writing is an experiment in telling the truth.' That simple statement is the basis of my philosophy of writing and teaching writing."Jan has a bachelor of arts degree from St. Thomas Aquinas College in Sparkill, New York. He was editor of the Sullivan County Democrat and a contributing writer to the Times Herald-Record, both New York state newspapers. He lives in Bethany, Pennsylvania, with his wife, Valray, and daughter, Julia.