Joan Fernandez

Virginia Woolf’s Lesson on Vulnerability: Seeking Safety in a Wild World The anonymously gifted “Joy” stone I found near my doorway during the pandemic in 2020. I still have it “Dear Joanie,” I start a letter to me from my future self and scrawl, “Honey. . . ” Then pause: What exactly should this future me tell me now? And so, with the question introduced, my pen sprints onto the page. I scribble, writing nearly unintelligibly, as quickly as possible. It starts as a riff on my tendency toward...

It was a moment born from that seven-year pursuit—a pivot from the structured mandates of Corporate America to the uncharted territory of curiosity. I traded the 'shoulds' of a boardroom for the 'could' of a blank page, battling the inevitable imposter syndrome along the way.

How historical fiction authors can navigate "Presentism" to protect their work—and their characters—from the buzzsaw of cancel culture. I joined sister authors at the History Through Fiction Conference for our panel on “Historical Fiction and Presentism.” From top, me, Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Jody Hadlock and Terri Lewis is in front. In today’s cancel culture how does a historical fiction author walk the tightrope of writing accurately about past attitudes without insulting today’s reader?...