Joan McIntosh graduated from Beloit College and has a master's degree in botany from the University of Wisconsin. She was head of the science program at a private school in South Bend, Indiana, before retiring in order to have more time to write.
Her poetry has been published in "South Dakota Review, Indiannual, Shenandoah, Connecticut River Review, Cumberland Review," and others. She has given readingsat the Noontime Series of the Folger ShakespeareLibrary in Washington, DC; the Naptown InvitationalReading Series at the Indianapolis Museum of Art; and atmany schools, churches, and bookstores.
Joan was one of twenty poets selected for a two-week workshop in Critz Virginia sponsored by Wake Forest University and Reynolds Tobacco. In February of 2006, Garrison Keillor read her poem "Reading History a Year at a Time" on his "Writer's Almanac "radio program.