One of “5 more writers over 50” to watch. —Poets & Writers Magazine

Winner of the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, Joan Dempsey is the author of the novel, This Is How It Begins, which won the bronze Independent Publisher Book Award for literary fiction and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award, and Sarton Women’s Book Award.

This Is How It Begins was also selected by the American Library Association for the 2018 Over the Rainbow List of Literature Titles.

Among other awards and accolades, Joan has received a significant research grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, a full scholarship to the Key West Literary Seminars and Workshops, a Maine Literary Award, and a residency at the Jentel Artists Residency Program. She holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles.

Her writing has been published in The Adirondack Review, Alligator Juniper, Obsidian: Literature of the African Diaspora, and Plenitude Magazine, and aired on National Public Radio.

She lives in Maine with her partner and their family of animals. Learn more at joandempsey.com.

In 2009, eighty-five-year-old art professor Ludka Zeilonka gets drawn into a political firestorm when her grandson, Tommy, is among a group of gay Massachusetts teachers fired for allegedly silencing Christian kids in high school classrooms. The ensuing battle to reinstate the teachers raises the specter of Ludka’s World War II past—a past she’s spent a lifetime trying to forget. Radio host Warren Meck has been leading the Massachusetts campaign to root out anti-religious bias in public schools—but he believes in working respectfully within the political system, so he’s alarmed and offended when his efforts are undermined by someone inciting violent action. Even worse, he fears the culprit is among his inner circle. As Ludka’s influential family defends Tommy under increasingly vicious conditions, a stranger with connections to her past shows up and threatens to expose her for illegally hoarding a valuable painting presumed stolen by the Nazis. Compulsively readable, This Is How It Begins is a timely novel about free speech, the importance of empathy, and the bitter consequences of long-buried secrets.