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Joan Bauer

Born

in The United States

July 12, 1951

Website

http://www.joanbauer.com/

Genre

Literature & Fiction

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From: http://www.joanbauer.com/jbbio.html

July 12, 1951 - I was born at eleven A.M., a most reasonable time, my mother often said, and when the nurse put me in my mother's arms for the first time I had both a nasty case of the hiccups and no discernible forehead (it's since grown in). I've always believed in comic entrances.

As I grew up in River Forest, Illinois, in the 1950's, I seem to remember an early fascination with things that were funny. I thought that people who could make other people laugh were terribly fortunate. While my friends made their career plans, declaring they would become doctors, nurses, and lawyers, inwardly I knew that I wanted to be involved somehow in comedy. This, however, was a difficult concept to get across in From: http://www.joanbauer.com/jbbio.html

July 12, 1951 - I was born at eleven A.M., a most reasonable time, my mother often said, and when the nurse put me in my mother's arms for the first time I had both a nasty case of the hiccups and no discernible forehead (it's since grown in). I've always believed in comic entrances.

As I grew up in River Forest, Illinois, in the 1950's, I seem to remember an early fascination with things that were funny. I thought that people who could make other people laugh were terribly fortunate. While my friends made their career plans, declaring they would become doctors, nurses, and lawyers, inwardly I knew that I wanted to be involved somehow in comedy. This, however, was a difficult concept to get across in first grade. But I had a mother with a great comic sense (she was a high school English teacher) and a grandmother who had been a funny professional storyteller, so I figured the right genes were in there somewhere, although I didn't always laugh at what my friends laughed at and they rarely giggled at my jokes. That, and the fact that I was overweight and very tall, all made me feel quite different when I was growing up--a bit like a musk ox at a tea party.

My grandmother, who I called Nana, had the biggest influence on me creatively. She taught me the importance of stories and laughter. She never said, "Now I'm going to tell you a funny story," she'd just tell a story, and the humor would naturally flow from it because of who she was and how she and her characters saw the world. She showed me the difference between derisive laughter that hurts others and laughter that comes from the heart. She showed me, too, that stories help us understand ourselves at a deep level. She was a keen observer of people.

I kept a diary as a child, was always penning stories and poems. I played the flute heartily, taught myself the guitar, and wrote folk songs. For years I wanted to be a comedienne, then a comedy writer. I was a voracious reader, too, and can still remember the dark wood and the green leather chairs of the River Forest Public Library, can hear my shoes tapping on the stairs going down to the children's room, can feel my fingers sliding across rows and rows of books, looking through the card catalogs that seemed to house everything that anyone would ever need to know about in the entire world. My parents divorced when I was eight years old, and I was devastated at the loss of my father. I pull from that memory regularly as a writer. Every book I have written so far has dealt with complex father issues. My dad was an alcoholic and the pain of that was a shadow that followed me for years, but I've learned things from that experience that have made me resilient. I attempted to address those issues in Rules of the Road, and I took them even further in the companion book, Best Foot Forward. The theme that I try to carry into all of my writing is this: adversity, if we let it, will make us stronger.

In my twenties, I worked in sales and advertising for the Chicago Tribune, McGraw-Hill, WLS Radio, and Parade Magazine. I met my husband Evan, a computer engineer, while I was on vacation. Our courtship was simple. He asked me to dance; I said no. We got married five months later in August, 1981. But I was not happy in advertising sales, and I had a few ulcers to prove it. With Evan's loving support, I decided to try my hand at professional writing. I wish I could say that everything started falling into place, but it was a slow, slow build -- writing newspaper and magazine articles for not much money. My daughter Jean was born in July of '82. She had the soul of a writer even as a baby. I can remember sitting at my typewriter (I didn't have a computer back then) writing away with Jean on a blanket on the floor next to me. If my writing was bad that day, I'd tear that page out of the typewriter and hand it to her. "Bad paper," I'd say and Jean would r ...more

69 posts
Joan Bauer's Blog

Joan Bauer isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.

Merry, Merry

My email is clogged with last minute offers from companies who swore up and down that their free shipping ended at midnight last night, but now they've reconsidered. My house is a mess and in four hours it cannot be a mess -- it cannot.

I'm not sure about this one present I bought. I hope the gift card I got for another doesn't seem impersonal. I was at a store where a salesperson wanted

Combine Editions
Joan Bauer’s books

Average rating: 3.96 · 65,198 ratings · 7,284 reviews · 40 distinct works • Similar authors

	Hope Was Here 4.01 avg rating — 20,520 ratings — published 2000 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Almost Home 4.23 avg rating — 8,986 ratings — published 2012 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Close to Famous 4.03 avg rating — 9,088 ratings — published 2011 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rules of the Road (Rules of the Road, #1) 3.91 avg rating — 5,864 ratings — published 1998 — 30 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Peeled 3.62 avg rating — 4,673 ratings — published 2008 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Soar 4.16 avg rating — 3,374 ratings — published 2016 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Best Foot Forward (Rules of the Road, #2) 3.78 avg rating — 2,396 ratings — published 2005 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Squashed 3.80 avg rating — 2,333 ratings — published 1992 — 23 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Stand Tall 3.65 avg rating — 1,947 ratings — published 2002 — 26 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tell Me 3.87 avg rating — 1,629 ratings — published 2014 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Joan Bauer…

Series by Joan Bauer

Rules of the Road (2 books)
by

Joan Bauer

3.87 avg rating — 8,260 ratings

Quotes by Joan Bauer (?)

“My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn't have any excuse to be stupid.”
― Joan Bauer, Rules of the Road

tags: books, library

790 likes

“When the going gets tough, the tough get a librarian.”
― Joan Bauer

tags: librarians, libraries, paraphrased

184 likes

“We read to learn and to grow, to laugh, to be motivated, and to understand things we've never been exposed to. We read for strength to help us when we feel broken, discouraged or afraid. We read to find hope. We read because we're not just made up of skin and bones, and a deep need for chocolate, but we're also made up of words, words which describe our thoughts and what's hidden in our hearts.”
― Joan Bauer

98 likes

See all Joan Bauer's quotes »

Polls

What book would you like to read in November?

Ash by Malinda Lo

26 votes, 29.5%

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

21 votes, 23.9%

Caleb + Kate by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

10 votes, 11.4%

Nothing by Janne Teller

8 votes, 9.1%

Love, Meg by C. Leigh Purtill

7 votes, 8.0%

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

4 votes, 4.5%

Squashed by Joan Bauer

3 votes, 3.4%

The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich

3 votes, 3.4%

Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan

3 votes, 3.4%

Sammy Keyes and the Hotel Thief by Wendelin Van Draanen

3 votes, 3.4%

88 total votes

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Joan Bauer’s Followers (850)

Add NewVideos

Joan Bauer

69 postsJoan Bauer's Blog

Merry, Merry

Combine EditionsJoan Bauer’s books

Series by Joan Bauer

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

69 posts
Joan Bauer's Blog

Combine Editions
Joan Bauer’s books