Joanna Beth Tweedy
An ardent
foreign-adventurist with chronic and gravitational home-soil leanings, Joanna
Beth Tweedy was born and raised in Little Egypt--the southernmost region of
Illinois leapfrogged betwixt the Ozarks and Appalachia, whose geography belongs
to the former and idiom to the latter. Her work gives voice to this distinct
region and its sundry wonders both merciless and steeped in grace.
Joanna Beth is the founding editor and host of Quiddity International Literary Journal and Public-Radio Program at Benedictine University in partnership with Illinois Public Radio's hub-station, WUIS, NPR member and PRI affiliate. In addition to her debut novel, The Yonder Side of Sass and Texas (Southeast Missouri University Press, 2009), her poetry and fiction have been published in literary journals and anthologies and have received honors from Glimmer Train, the Southern Women Writers Conference, Alsop Review, New Millennium Writing, the Ray Bradbury Creative Writing Contest, Life Press, and Long Story Short.
With degrees in education and English from the Universities of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and Springfield (UIS), Joanna Beth has taught creative writing, literature, and educational leadership, and has served as faculty-in-residence for the Capital Scholars Honors Program at UIS. She is presently an associate dean of academic affairs at Benedictine University at Springfield.
A wanderluster at heart, travel has been a defining characteristic of Joanna Beth's work and life, weaving its way through her endeavors and explorations. A wonderluster in spirit, she finds her way home through poetry.