Joan Fernandez is a novelist who brings to light brilliant women’s courageous deeds in history. In 2018, she retired from a 30+ year career as a senior marketing executive to be a full-time writer. In April 2020, she founded a historical fiction affinity group within WFWA that grew from a handful of people to nearly two hundred authors. Her short story, “A Parisian Daughter,” is published in the anthology, Feisty Deeds: Historical Fictions of Daring Women. Joan is a sought-after public speaker, most recently presenting “How to Portray the Past Truthfully without Harm” at the Tenth Anniversary Conference for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association in September 2024. Joan calls both St. Louis and Sedona, Arizona, home, enjoys foodie meals with her Cuban husband and antics with grandkids.

In the tradition of The Paris Bookseller and Her Hidden Genius, the story of a real woman overshadowed in history by the giant talent she saved, Vincent van Gogh.

How did a failed belligerent Dutch painter become one of the greatest artists of our time? 

In 1891, timid Jo van Gogh Bonger lives safely in the background of her art dealer husband Theo’s passionate work to sell unknown artists, especially his ill-fated dead brother Vincent. When Theo dies unexpectedly, Jo’s brief happiness is shattered. Her inheritance—hundreds of unsold paintings by Vincent—is worthless. Pressured to move to her parents’ home, Jo defies tradition, opening a boarding house to raise her infant son alone, and choosing to promote Vincent’s art herself. But her ingenuity and persistence draw the powerful opposition of a Parisian art dealer who vows to stop her once and for all, and so sink Vincent into obscurity.

Saving Vincent reveals there was more than one genius in the Van Gogh family.