Jan Emily Ramjerdi

Jan Emily Ramjerdi (Morrison) of Prudence Island, Rhode Island passed away peacefully on January 31st, 2025 at the age of 74. Born in Hackensack, NJ, as the middle child in a family of five children. Always the rabblerouser, she pushed the boundaries of what girls could do, wanting to play Little League Baseball, and was often the instigator of games and pranks in her neighborhood. She graduated from Ridgewood, NJ high school, a year ahead of time. At a young age, Jan was passionate about various causes and marched for peace with the Quakers during the Vietnam War era. Her interests continued to show throughout her life with a passion for social justice, writing, nature, the desert, the ocean, and her dogs. Jan graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with both bachelors and masters degrees in economics. Early in her career, she was a Senior Economist at Data Resources, Inc. where she built the first commercial forecasting models of the US regional, state and metro area economies. After completing a Doctor of Arts degree in English/Creative Writing at the University of Albany SUNY, she moved to higher education as an Assistant Professor at Stonehill College (Easton, MA). At Stonehill, she held a joint appointment in both Economics and English departments, following her love for both subjects. In the early 1990s, Jan accepted a professorship at California State University, Northridge (Los Angeles, CA), where she taught fiction writing, poetry writing, and theories of fiction, at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In the early 2000s, she returned to the East Coast as an Associate Professor of English at CUNY/Queensborough Community College, where she worked for over 20 years. She was passionate about teaching fiction writing, first year writing and literature, especially to her non-native English-speaking students. She helped them find their voice and creatively write their stories. Jans passion for writing goes back to her journal writing as a teenager. She wrote in the experimental literature genre, publishing RE.LA.VIR (2000) a novel that renders rape through the narrative filter of an online hypertext program. Jan attended numerous writing retreats including the prestigious Yaddo in Saratoga Springs NY and the Edward Albee Foundations creative retreats at "The Barn" in Montauk, Long Island. One of Jans writing retreats was on Tancook Island near Chester, Nova Scotia. She fell in love with the island and bought a home there, where she spent her summers. Last year, she bought a home on Prudence Island in Narraganset Bay, Rhode Island. Both islands provided numerous opportunities to walk in the woods, be near the ocean, and to watch the sun rise across the water. Jan is survived by her son Sean Morrison and his wife Jennifer of New York City, her granddaughters Emily and Zoe; bother Scott and his wife Lori of Houston, TX, brother Roger and his wife Andrea of Arrarat, VA; sister Barbara Moore and husband David of Edgartown, MA, sister Jill Boonstra and husband Richard of Pequannock, NJ, and numerous nieces and nephews. She also leaves behind her devoted service dog Dezi. Donations in her memory can be made to Prudence Conservancy, a non-profit organization committed to preserving the unique character and beauty of Prudence Island for future generations. http://prudenceconservancy.org/