Joanna is a produced playwright, screenwriter, librettist and lyricist. Her 2008 short film, The Silence of Bees, (based on the prologue to her stage play of the same title) won the prestigious Accolade Film Award in 2008, an Aloha Accolade from the Honolulu International Film Festival in 2009 and was screened at the Southeast New England Film Festival, The Kodak Screening Room in Los Angeles by Women in Film in April 2009, and in 2010 at the Urban Suburban Film Festival in Philadelphia, The Naperville Independent Film Festival in Illinois where it was an Official Selection and The New York Independent International Film Festival. Her original comedy screenplay Lila Loves Louie about an endangered lemur was the winner of The 2009 Moondance International Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado. She is also an Associate Producer for the 2010 Canadian Academy Award nominated documentary, Leave Them Laughing, directed by U.S. Academy Award winner John Zaritsky which documents the life of Carla Zilbersmith as she bravely battles and eventually succumbs to ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Joanna is pleased as punch to be the Executive Producer for Within Reach and part of the creative team that helped make the film.

Joanna is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, The Los Angeles branch of Women in Film, The Dramatists Guild, Theatre West of Los Angeles, and The Academy for New Musical Theatre. She has produced over 15 plays in the San Francisco Bay area including The Laramie Project, Speed-the-Plow and The Vagina Monologues as well as many festivals of new plays. She has been a full time professor of literature, theatre and film at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, CA for the last 19 years. She hopes to find or launch a community of artists who will support and care for one another over the coming tumultuous and challenging decade, either in the US or abroad.

:: EDUCATION ::

1. Fellow, California Writing Project, University of California, Irvine
   

2. Master of Arts, California State University, English, American Literature with an emphasis on African American and Native American literature
   

3. Master of Fine Arts, Ohio University, Theatre with a minor in Playwriting/Screenwriting
   

4. Bachelor of Arts, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Education
   
   

:: AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS ::

1. East of Eden William Faulkner Playwriting Award, Salinas, California
   

2. Bay Area Cable Excellence Award, Winner, Best in Entertainment for the film: God Talk
   

3. Bay Area Cable Excellence Award, Finalist, Technical Excellence
   

4. Telly, God Talk, Producer
   

5. Semi-finalist, The Chesterfield Writing Project, Blueberry Hill
   

6. Finalist, The Writer’s Network, Los Angeles, Ca, Blueberry Hill
   

7. Winner of the Southern California Educational Theatre Association Playwriting Contest, Jacob’s Way
   

8. Finalist, San Francisco Playwright’s Center, My Movie Star
   

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