JOAN CROWELL was born in 1921. She is a poet, composer, librettist, and novelist. She received her MA from New York University, where she taught English. She is the author of Portrait of a Father (as Joan Simon) and Fort Dix Stockade. Her operas include The Heights and The Bell Witch of Tennessee.


“Joan Crowell speaks a language all her own, and what she says goes far.”—Ned Rorem

"In recent years Joan Crowell has lived an oceanic life a few feet from the surf on the south shore of Long Island: a wife, composer of operas, mother of five children, a great-grandmother—a poet whose writing is sometimes clear as a glass of water, sometimes clouded by personal storms. She has lived a long life of privilege and struggle. What comes through is some honest work touched with beauty, words that should not be lost, useful to others."—Stanley Moss