Joan
L. Cannon was born in New York city, where she went to school until college. Reading and the teachers in her life inspired
her. When she got serious about writing, she took the Writer's Digest correspondence courses, attended Connecticut Writers'
League seminars, a day-long seminar with Sol Stein, and a Wesleyan University Writers' Conference, as well as other workshops.
Most of her adult life was spent in a
village in western Connecticut with her husband and their children, dogs, cats, horses, and other pets, enjoying
the country life.
Many years volunteering with her husband
in the local little theater, the library, and various town agencies, along with teaching (English and drama) in the local
high school, managing a museum store, and a variety of other jobs, left too little time to try to realize her childhood ambition--to
write fiction.
She didn't begin to write for publication
until she had a computer, the children were grown, and she had retired.
Since then, she has published short stories in both literary
and commercial magazines: Pulpsmith,
Seacoast Life, Grit, Thema, The Modern Woodmen, Cappers, ELF, Expressions, as well
as profiles, reviews, and features for newspapers near her home. A short story collection was released in 2011.
Now she writes a column and book reviews for the online
magazine called Senior Women Web. She is seeking an agent for her third literary novel with the working title, Second Growth.
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"I am interested in stories that develop from the
characters in them, that provide a view of life as it might appear if the reader could see inside the hearts and minds of
the actors in it. Atmosphere and natural surroundings are vital to my narratives because they lend the scenes credibility--verisimilitude,
and because the planet where we find ourselves deserves (to quote Arthur Miller), 'attention must be paid.'"
