life
home

Joy Passanante was the first of three daughters born to first-generation Americans (a blend of Hungarian/Rumanian/Czechoslovakian and Sicilian) and grew up in a close-knit family in suburban St. Louis. By the time she was nine years old she knew that she wanted to be a writer.

She studied creative writing (and art history among other fascinating subjects) at Sarah Lawrence College and later at Washington University in St. Louis, where she developed her love for classical literature and earned her bachelor’s degree. After receiving her master’s degree (Cornell University, M.A.T., emphasis in poetry and teaching poetry), she taught grades 9 through 12 in upstate New York for three years.

Her work at the University of Idaho has included public relations writing, editing, script writing, and faculty and staff communications training, as well as classroom teaching. She has taught sixteen different courses for the English department, including literature, expository writing, research-based writing, and business writing.  More recently, she has taught graduate and undergraduate creative writing courses in three genres and currently serves as the Associate Director of Creative Writing.

For eight years she cast her lot with the College of Business and Economics as its communications and publications specialist. She also directed a writing program for the college’s 900 students. She has been a writer for the university as well as many of its departments and was one of four head writers for the University of Idaho Centennial.

She has also been a freelance writer and editor and has given nearly 200 writing and communications seminars throughout the West for universities, businesses, and organizations.  The Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences appointed her as an Administrative Fellow for 2006-2007. 

She is married to Gary Williams.  They met in a Shakespeare class at Washington University, attended graduate school together at Cornell, and married at the end of their first year there. He also teaches in the UI Department of English, and you can read about him at his website.  They have two daughters: Liza, who lives in Brooklyn and uses her theater training teaching for City University and running an after-school drama program for PS 32 in Carroll Gardens; and Emily, who works as a project director for a faculty member at the University of Washington's medical school and is completing her dissertation (on intervention methods for alcohol misuse) for a Ph.D. in Health Services.  Liza's husband Brad Strickler is a marketing manager for Scholastic Publishers.