Janet Skeslien Charles

Janet Skeslien Charles has lived in Paris since 1999. She enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family in Montana and South Carolina. She is working on her second novel as well as a collection of essays about life in Paris.The backdrop of her debut novel Moonlight in Odessa is the booming business of e-mail order brides, an industry where love and marriage meet sex and commerce. While at the University of Montana, Janet Skeslien Charles translated letters from desperate Russian women to lonely American men. She also interpreted for Russian women married to Americans. After finishing her degree in English literature, she spent two years in Odessa, Ukraine, where she taught English and French at a high school and trained teachers of English as a Soros Fellow. During this time, she spoke with Western men who went to socials. She also met women who found husbands through international matchmaking organizations. The interviews with these men and women before and after the wedding make up the framework of her novel.