Jann Mitchell

How does an American journalist become a Love Refugee in Sweden and "Bibi (Grandma) Jann" to hundreds of AIDS orphans and poor children in Tanzania, East Africa?

It began in mid-life when I re-connected after 20 years with my long-lost Swedish sweetheart... a love spanning five decades, two centuries and three continents! And to think I had nearly given up on love...

Share the adventure with my WHERE LOVE LEADS Trilogy, traveling from a houseboat in Oregon to a village in Tanzania, East Africa to burbs-on-the-Baltic outside Stockholm, Sweden.

Vol. 1 is RIVER THROUGH MY SOUL - A True Romance. If you've ever longed to downsize and simplify your life, live on a houseboat and/or among nature, or find an former love, this will inspire you. I still find it amazing that it really happened to me!

THE SCHOOL THAT LOVE BUILT - A True African Adventure is Vol. 2, capturing the heartbreak, excitement and fulfillment of discovering Tanzania, East Africa up close. Learn how two women - one black, one white - with the help of donors around the world - joined forces to build a school, orphanage, farm and GRANDMA-2-GRANDMA programs benefiting AIDS orphans. Many times there, it feels as if I've stepped into the pages of National Geographic.

Vol.3 is LOVE REFUGEE - A True Ex-Pat Life in Sweden. Living outside one's culture helps you understand your own country better. Not only am I experiencing the kind of marriage I'd dispaired of ever finding, but I'm discovering the joys, fustrations and hilarity of the Swedish culture. Marriage half-way round the world proves to me that the third time is indeed charmed!

WHERE LOVE LEADS Trilogy is for anyone who's lost hope of finding true love, wants to change their life and follow their dreams, longs to help create a better world. And to think it's all possible in the final third of life!

Before all this happened to me, I was a feature writer and relationship columnist for The Oregonian newspaper in Portland. Earlier, at The Oregon Journal, undercover journalism drew me to pose as a prostitute, go to jail for drunken driving, shoplift until caught, eat from garbage can on Skid Row, weekend in a nudist camp, and more.

Initially, work was stimulating, exciting. Fifteen years into newspaper work, the satisfaction waned and seemed too often invasive, pandering, exploitive. I turned toward writing that would help people rather than make them feel less safe, more insecure about themselves. What I miss most about those latter years was the interaction with and affirmation from readers. I kept my sanity by listening to them more than I did editors...

After nearly 30 years with the same publisher, it was difficult to leave - but definitely time. A former coworker once assured me there was life outside that workplace, and I want to assure other malcontents in whatever occupation that she was right! Following my heart made all my dreams come true: love, travel, financial security, philanthropy, adventure, fulfillment.

I hope my books help YOU follow your heart!