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Welcome to Janice Dempsey's Personal Blog
Loving the life I live....​

I trained in the 1960's as a fine artist at the Central School of Art in London (UK) and earned a living for over thirty years as an art teacher in secondary schools, with a break of 9 years in the 1980's when I went abroad to Brunei and Bangladesh with my husband, then became a mother. When I retired from teaching, I continued to paint and also became interested in writing poetry. For three years after separating from my then husband, I went to southern Italy as often as I could, drawing and painting in Sorrento and on the Amalfi Coast. Meeting Dónall, the poet and spoken word performer whom I later married, changed my life again. We are a strong partnership, publishing poetry pamphlets and collections and hosting monthly spoken word events and book launches, online since the pandemic began in 2020. Our publishing website is dempseyandwindle.com. I began to take a vigorous interest in our small garden during the pandemic, and so I hope to add a page on this site that I'll devote to images and notes about my garden. 
  • What is this site for?
This site is a personal indulgence, a record of what has pleased me, engaged my interest, and occupied my time and energy. The material that I post on these pages is a record of the experiences that make me grateful I've lived through the second half of the twentieth century CE and am still alive in the twenty-first, despite the global anxieties of climate change, humanitarian crises, global inequality , wars and atrocities of all kinds. And, to put it simply, I feel lucky. 
  • There may occasionally be poems by me.
  • What will not appear on this site?
There will be no Paypal buttons or shopping carts. This is not a selling site. I have a commercial site called dempseyandwindle.com where books and publishing opportunities are available. The paintings on " janice-gempsey.com" are not offered for sale. I post them only so that I can remember making them and others can look and share them with me, if they choose. The reviews I publish here have been published elsewhere and have served to encouraged audiences and readers to enjoy plays and books that I've enjoyed.
  • There will be no articles on politics.  Politics are important to me but this is not a place where I shall discuss them.


Janice Windle's official website

Janice Dempsey