I’m Joy.

I’ve been writing in one form or another since I was about thirteen. It began early and never really stopped. Over time that writing has taken different shapes, from journalism, scripts and theatre critique to fiction, poetry and longer-form work.

Alongside that, I’ve spent many years as a psychotherapist and clinical supervisor. Listening closely to how people tell their stories, how meaning is constructed and how something shifts beneath the surface. That way of listening now sits underneath everything I write.

My background includes over thirty years of theatre engagement, including writing reviews and working within performance and production, touring my own productions and adapting classic literature. I’ve also written business and general journalism and was recognised early on through Young Journalist awards. More recently, my work has been published in the Dear 2021 poetry collection, now held in the British Library.

I’ve written consistently over many years, including multiple consecutive NaNoWriMo completions, developing longer-form fiction alongside shorter work. My current writing focuses on psychological and speculative fiction, where the interest remains the same: perception, justification and the point where something changes.

Most recently, my short story Proxi and Error was published in The Sands of Time anthology, following Jodi Taylor’s competition in support of Scope. Again recently a new entry Boudicca's Breeze is amongst the entries in a new competition.

Tea With Joy is where I write more openly. Fragments, reviews, early drafts and the thinking that sits alongside the work itself.

I live in Yorkshire, inhaling tea and books daily. I have three children and would have taken the title of Mother Of Dragon's but someone got there before me. We all live together in a house, fully cognisant that we live to serve the cats.