Category Joy’s Work

2026 Notable In Best American Essays

What a nice surprise to learn that my essay on Langston Hughes in Carmel for Alta was a notable in the 2026 Best American Essays! You can read Vigilantes at the Door here.

Goodbye Salon

I’m sad about Salon closing. Here is my one and only piece for them: A 2003 interview with Ani Difranco. It was a great conversation, not too long after 9/11–a very different time.

Petaluma Argus Courier: Save Cherry Valley Park

Doesn’t it feel like everything good is either going away or turning somehow bad? I wrote an op-ed about how my son’s school is destroying the park on my street, tearing out 30 trees and putting up a 9,000-sf building.…

The Guardian: Sex and the Sea Snail

For The Guardian, I got to witness researchers attempt to spawn the endangered white abalone, giant marine snails that live off the California coast.It was a surprisingly uplifting and hopeful experience, despite all the challenges these creatures face (including the…

Reading With Atmosphere Press

I had the pleasure of reading with Katherine Elberfeld and Allyson S. Barkley at the Playa Flamingo Live Author Reading. If you’re interested in Atmosphere Press’s writing residency in Costa Rica, which I attended last year, you can watch here:

Short Story: Kim

And for the first publication of 2026, I have a short-short up over at Every Day Fiction called Kim. Read here!

My Play: Mrs. Dickens’ Christmas Dinner

I wrote a play! It’s a Christmas comedy about Charles Dickens and his wife Kate. Here’s a description from the Petaluma Argus-Courier. “Set on Christmas Eve 1841, the story drops us in on the household of the famous writer Charles…

Pushcart Special Mention

What a delightful surprise to learn my short story, The Bear, was a Special Mention in the 2026 Pushcart Prize anthology!

Alta: Last West Play

I wrote about a new play, Last West, about the photographer Dorothea Lange. Read here!