Janice Marino

9/23/31-3/26/17 Author Jan Marino passed away peacefully on Sunday, March 26th at 4pm at home surrounded by her tearful and loving family. Jan was born in East Boston and graduated from Girls High School in 1948. In August 1946, at Spadafora's Drugstore, Jan met the love of her life, Len Marino, a young man who had just been discharged from the United States Navy. She would spend the rest of her days with him. They married in 1952 and moved to New York to raise their three children in Oyster Bay, Long Island. In 1998, they relocated to Denver, following their children and grandchildren. Jan was a vibrant, witty woman. She was fiercely loyal and a champion for those she loved, she was truly a beautiful person inside and out. In her mid 50's Jan started a successful career as a young adult author and wrote 6 critically acclaimed and award winning young adult novels for Little Brown and Simon and Shuster. Her first novel, Eighty-Eight Steps to September, won New York Times accolades and tackled head-on the subject of the childhood death of her own brother, Bobby. Jan had an ear trained to the voices of children ever since her own childhood, when she was always spinning tales in her head. As a young mother with three children of her own and a second-grade Sunday school class to lead, she began making up stories, and songs, and nonsense rhymes for the children. When her youngest child entered grade school, she went back to school herself and, at a professor's urging, took a creative writing class. In time, she attended a number of writer's conferences where she received further encouragement from instructors and colleagues. Jan eventually went on to teach at the college level at Long Island University and the University of Denver's OSHER Lifelong Learning Program. She was a masterful teacher. Jan is survived by her devoted husband, Len Marino and her three children, Len Marino Jr., Chris Marino and Betsy Leighton, her grandchildren, Justine Marino, Sarah Dealy, Robby Leighton, Carly Leighton and Jude Marino. She is also survived by her daughters in law, Lorna and Laura Marino and her son in law Bob Leighton, and her sister Joan Botwinik and niece, Nancy Botwinik. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Jan Marino Fellowship for aspiring writers www.writingxwriters.org/donate. It was her passion to help young writers find their voice. Her funeral is at St. Andrews Church (2015 Glenarm Place) in Denver on Saturday, April 1 at 2pm.