Janelle Sheetz has had a love of writing and storytelling since childhood—not only was she a voracious bookworm, but she enjoyed expressing herself through writing. She excelled at creative writing early on, with her writing assignments often earning praise from her teachers and sometimes being featured in school newsletters.

This led Janelle to pursue a career in writing, and in 2011, she earned her degree in English Writing from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg. During her time as a student, she served on the staff of the campus newspaper The Insider and ran a blog dedicated to her home county that garnered local attention and ultimately had thousands of pageviews until she relocated. Meanwhile, spent her summers working as a stringer for local newspaper the Herald-Standard, where she contributed articles covering everything from local fairs to highlighting notable accomplishments from those in the community. She was also the university’s winner of the Joan Didion Award for her creative nonfiction.

Upon graduation, Janelle accepted a position at a locally based closed-captioning company, while also serving as a contributor to independent music website Inyourspeakers. She was soon given the position of Managing Features Editor. In addition to organizing coverage, editing contributors’ articles, and still contributing content herself, she was responsible for arranging credentials for concert reviews and festival coverage, coordinated with musicians and PR to create an exclusive monthly mix series, created a guide to genres to aid contributors, contributed to the publication’s style guide, and managed its social-media presence. She stepped down at the end of 2014 to pursue other interests.

Over the last ten years, Janelle has contributed to Examiner.com, where she wrote about the Harry Potter franchise; music website Pop Damage; lifestyle website Urban Cashmere; her local CBS affiliate’s Eat. See. Play. page; and ticketing vendor AXS.com, which unfortunately came to an end when the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to the concert industry. Her extensive work for AXS started in 2014 and included onsale announcements, live reviews, seasonal event showcases, and such features as holiday gift guides for music lovers, articles highlighting the best music videos from specific artists, and a piece about music inspired by literature.

Since 2023, Janelle has regularly contributed list articles to entertainment website Collider.

Janelle’s personal essays have been featured on The Billfold, The Good Men Project, Atta Girl, Ms. magazine, and more. She also regularly posts articles and essays on Medium.

When Janelle isn’t writing, she enjoys reading, listening to music and attending concerts, and spending time with friends and family, particularly her husband, son, and their two cats in their home in the Pittsburgh area.