top of page

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.

author photo
bottom of page