About
Joanne loves to...
design, have a giggle, read & write,
hug, garden,
knit & crochet, needlepoint, interior design, play with color, shop, snuggle my dog, play scrabble, dress up, paint, dance, watch my daughters do anything, perfect a difficult yoga position, love & be loved.
Not in that order.
Joanne Steel Yordanou's Biography
I'm a mom first, of two (beautiful inside & out) daughters, a wife, daughter, sister, friend and dog-mommy. I've worked as an HR Manager for over 14 years, but I always strived to fulfill the "Do What You Are" goal. This meant remaining faithful to my creative nature. I've enjoyed writing since I was a child and continued creating stories as a pastime while I designed knitwear and wrote patterns for knitting magazines and yarn companies, including being a part of Paton's design studio team. A division of Random House published my first solo book, "Twelve Months of Knitting" - a career high for me, to say the least. The short stories at the beginning of each chapter/month inspired me to continue fiction writing.
After authoring "Twelve Months of Knitting," I got back to writing short stories, attended Brian Henry's Writing Class, joined a writing group, and then obtained an English Language & Literature degree from Queen's University. I have several published pieces, a few listed on my Writing page. I continue to write and edit each day.
I read books like chewing gum, one stick after another (sometimes a mouthful). I wrote blogs, a "practice" novel ("Love and Terror" now shelved), a second (shelved) novel, "Off the Grid," and have completed a post-climatic dystopia cli-fi novel "Naadia: The Wild West of the New World Order."
I'm now working on two projects: a fiction about a lawyer supporting a mentally challenged witness to a shooting and a biography, a collection of short stories about my family. Through my father's alcoholism and continued sobriety, he and my mother raised five children on two continents with a deep, abiding love. They were blessed with eleven grandchildren and fifteen great-grandchildren. Then ALS threatened to shatter this big happy family, killing three of five of my parent's adult children...my siblings. Instead, impossibly, it's brought us closer together.