Janet (Nutt) Lembke was born March 2, 1933 in Cleveland, OH. She received her AB in Classics from Middlebury College in 1953. Lembke was the recipient of the Ford Foundation National Translation Center fellowship in 1968-69. She has lived in North Carolina, but currently resides in Staunton, Virginia.

Lembke writes non-fiction books and also translates Greek and Latin texts. Her nonfiction writings predominantly focus on nature and the environment in the American south.

Lembke's first book, Bronze and Iron (1973), documents the history of Old Latin poetry through the Bronze and Iron Ages as well as the problems presented by their translation into English. The second half of the book presents translations of poems from these periods in history.

In addition to Bronze and Iron, Lembke has published translations of Aeschylus' Suppliants (1975) and Persians (1981), Euripides' Hecuba (1991) and Electra (1994), and Virgil's Georgics (2005).

With River Time (1989), Lembke moved from classical translations to non-fiction environmental writing. The book describes how people living on the banks of North Carolina's Lower Neuse River live in concert with the natural world.

With her next book, Looking for Eagles (1990), Lembke reveals that much of what most fascinates her in nature has classical origins. She mixes myth with natural history, a theme that carries through many of her other books.

In addition to her numerous books, she has published articles in Audubon, New York Times, Raleigh New and Observer, Bird Watcher's Digest, North American Review, Oxford American, and Sierra.