S1 Episode 111 - Interview with Joyce Fields - Author of 10 Books

Joyce was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan.  She is retired and now lives in Arcadia, California.

She started her career as a stenographer at a major utility company in Detroit, working her way up through supervisor of word processing, then as the office manager for an automotive advertising agency, and, lastly, as an executive assistant at a large non-profit health maintenance organization.  She is also a professional proofreader (one of her clients was eHarmony, the dating service).  All of these positions were leading her into writing and becoming an author.

She wrote her first book, Line of Serenity (a memoir), in 1997.  Being the oldest of seven, in a very happy family, Joyce wanted to capture the way their parents raised them so that the way they did it would not be lost when they all passed on.  The book goes from 1944 (the year Joyce was born) through 1977 and includes family recipes and photographs.  Recipes, because the food was and still is an important part of their family's fabric; photographs, so that descendants can see what their ancestors looked like.

The manager of a Barnes and Noble bookstore once told Joyce that Line of Serenity was the only totally positive memoir about an African American family that she had ever read.

Joyce gets her inspiration from living and observing life.  In addition to Line of Serenity, she has written nine other books about relationships (The Best Way to Keep a Man is to Let Him Go [among other things]); parenting (Mother's Dozen:  An Easy Recipe for Raising GREAT Kids!), which is also available in Spanish; children's fiction (Jette Black and Her Seven Friends); children's non-fiction (THE VISION:  Telling Kids That They Can Make the World a Better Place); bullying (Dear Bully:  A Collection of Poems about Bullying); the power and simplicity of quotes (My Simple Quotes to Live By); breast cancer (A Breast Cancer Journey to GREATER Joy!  Taking the Fear and Mystery Out of a Breast Cancer Diagnosis); and spirituality (THE LIMITLESS GOLDEN RULE:  21 Ways to Use the Golden Rule In Your Life).

She also wrote three opinion editorials ("Better examples help kids more than political remedies," "The Golden Rule could improve race relations," and "Provide kids with role models, and sell them education,") which were published (verbatim) in The Detroit Free Press.

Joyce and her husband, Fred ("Pap"), have been together for 61 years--since they were both 13 years old.  They have been happily married for 51 years and have two grown sons, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

All of her books are described and can be ordered from www.GoodShortBooks.com.  

• Contact her at [email protected].  
• You can also follow her on Facebook (Joyce Fields); 
• Twitter (@goodshortbooks); 
• Instagram (jjfields7).