A retired educator, Joanna Lawson has a BA from McMaster University, an MEd from Brock University, and has completed a master’s level course in poetry from the University of New Hampshire. She has been writing most of her life, and delved into poetry while dealing with the grief of losing her husband in 1987. An award-winning poet, she has twice received the Hamilton Arts Council Literary Award for Poetry (Inner Voices, 2005; A Bundle of Life, 2008). Her poems celebrate life in all its surprising variety and complications, as well as reflecting on the universality of the human condition.