Joan Bird

Joan traces her roots back to Ireland, England, and Wales. Discounting any inherited pioneer courage, she recently left her home of forty-plus years, and her state of four generations, for the mountains of northern Arizona. Instead of musing the fates of a hero or heroine along a foggy beach, she now hikes trails looking out to Granite Mountain or the San Francisco Peaks. Petrified, sure, but she loves her small-town peppered with rodeos, lakes, pines, old trucks, and rocks - lots of rocks. The transition made by moving truck instead of covered wagon allowed her to settle into writing full-time and lawyering part-time. While support from her four sisters, her children, their spouses, and a crew of grandchildren is a constant, her cowboy-hero husband remains her best bud along with her Labradoodle, Doobie, who practices goofiness, toy-mongering, and provides constructive criticism of character arcs in exchange for walks.