JOAN GELFAND’s reviews, poetry and stories have won the Cervena Barva Fiction Award, The Chaffin Fiction Award, Red Room Authors award for reviewing and three Pushcart nominations. Her work has appeared in national and international publications, including the Los Angeles Review of Books, Rattle, PANK! Chicken Soup for the Soul, Prairie Schooner, Levure Litteraire, Voice and Verse and the Toronto Review. A short film based on her poem “The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics” won best Poetry Film at the World Film Festival and was featured at 20 international film festivals.
Joan coaches writers around the country. Past President of the Women’s National Book Association, Joan founded a national writing contest, is an active member of the National Book Critics Circle, a juror for the Northern California Book Awards and a contributor to the Huffington Post. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Adam Hertz, a Silicon Valley veteran, and two beatnik kitties, Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
