Look and Listen

Biography

Joy remembers wanting to be a writer as soon as she learned to put pencil to paper. As a child, she used to write stories about animals and even made her own books from folded pieces of paper for her family. Later, while still in high school, she wrote an episode for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, a television show popular at the time. Even though she was only seventeen, she managed to obtain an agent from Samuel French, Inc. and her script made it all the way to Hollywood. “That rejection letter is still one of my most prized possessions.” Joy’s dream of becoming a writer was put on hold for the next few – make that many – years as life and other situations [school, marriage, divorce, remarriage, starting a business] took precedence. Now that life has settled down, she has found that the urge to write won’t let her be and she has once again put her pencil to paper. Joy’s first journey back into publication took the shape of a health newsletter for Baby Boomers that she started in 1997 with a friend. It wasn’t a success. “I think we were ahead of our time. Boomers weren’t ready to look at their health back then.” But that didn’t stop her. Her next venture was online and Joy published several medical and health-related articles, even having her own monthly health column at one point. She eventually branched out into print magazines. But making up stories has always been her first love. She wanted to write fiction. “I started playing a game of ‘what-if’ one day with an idea that had been rolling around my mind and the seeds for Second Chance started to sprout.” Joy drew on her own emotional experience as a second wife and stepmother while giving Sara, the protagonist, her voice. “Writing novels is what I want to do and I’m already one third of the way through my next book.” Joy shares her Arizona home with her husband of twenty-six years and their fur-kids. “My ideal life would be sitting at my computer, drinking coffee and weaving tales.” For more information, visit her at www.joycollins.com.

Inspiration

As Baby Boomer women, we have profoundly and irrevocably changed our world. Now we face new challenges - our parents' and our own. How we ultimately meet these new challenges remains to be seen. But one thing is certain. The rules have changed. What worked for our parents will not work for us. We will not go gently into that good night. All 76 million of us will go kicking and screaming and changing everything as we do. Literature - what's written, how it is delivered - will be changed along with everything else. I want to be a part of that change.