Joan Gannij is a writer who makes photographs of the people she writes about. She was born in New York City, raised in Hollywood, and has been based in Amsterdam since 1987. Her mother Adele was a glamour photographer who put a camera in her hand when she was five. Joan started her career as a journalist in the mid–1970s, freelancing for the LA Free Press, LA Times, Los Angeles Magazine, Penthouse, Viva, and more, making interviews with Henry Miller, Joan Baez, and Muhammad Ali, among many others. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Twelve Poems, Domestic Landscapes & Other Terrain, and Wounds of Change, as well as an award-winning children’s book author of Elusive Moose, Hidden Hippo (Barefoot Books), and a respected jazz and pop lyricist. She recently completed a memoir, One-Way Ticket: On My Way to Here, and for the past 17 years, has taught creative writing at a private Dutch college.