About Joanna

Joanna Quinn was born in London in 1976. When she was seven, she moved with her mum and sister to a village called Osmington in Dorset.  Joanna wrote stories as a child, and her first published work was one was inspired by Dorset - a story called Kestrel that won a WH Smith Young Writers Award when she was 12. 

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After studying English Literature at university in Salford, Joanna worked as a journalist in the West Country, while completing a Mphil in Creative Writing at the University of South Wales. Joanna’s maternal grandfather was Welsh (her other grandparents are Irish and Cornish) and the only writerly relative she knows of was her grandfather’s brother, the Welsh author Gywn Thomas. 

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During her twenties and thirties. Joanna wrote short stories and was published by the Bridport Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize, The White Review, Comma Press and others. She was also a Jerwood/ Arvon mentee and a finalist for the National Arts Foundation Fellowship for Short Stories.

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In 2013, while working for a charity, she began a PhD in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University in London, and, as part of this, began to write a novel. During the lockdown of 2020, she heard that literary agent Clare Alexander was looking for submissions. Despite the fact her novel was unfinished, Joanna was taken on by Clare and completed her manuscript during the pandemic.  

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This manuscript became The Whalebone Theatre, which was the subject of a four-way bidding war in early 2021. It was published in the UK in June 2022 and in America in October 2022 and became an instant bestseller in both countries. It has been sold to over twelve territories around the globe. Joanna still lives in Dorset with her daughter, where she is figuring out her next novel.