Joyce Kleiner writes personal essays, social commentary, and regional history. Her first book, Legendary Locals of Mill Valley (Arcadia Publishing), was released in 2014. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of San Francisco; her non-fiction writing was chosen by the faculty of that USF master’s program to represent the university in the Associated Writing Programs Intro Journals Project (a national writing award competition).

Joyce has been a columnist for the Marin Independent Journal and Marinscope newspapers; her column “”Civics Lessons” ran in the Mill Valley Herald (a publication of Marinscope News) from 2007 to 2013. “Civics Lessons” focused on local stories and issues, and also featured interviews and profiles of well-known personalities such as poet Jane Hirshfield,  actor and political activist Peter Coyote, and writer George Leonard.  Columnists such as San Francisco Chronicle writers Jon Carroll and Leah Garchik have quoted “Civics Lessons” in their own columns, as have a number of local news and civic organizations.

In addition to Marin Independent Journal and Mill Valley Herald, Joyce’s essays have appeared in the literary journal Dos Passos Review, Ross Valley Reporter, Novato Advance, Mill Valley Patch, and Review magazine (a publication of the Mill Valley Historical Society). They have also been reprinted on a variety of news and literary sites.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area with a background in performing arts, Joyce has stood on six of the seven continents, waited tables in Greenwich Village, performed in the musical Hair in Spain, flown throughout the world as a Pan Am flight attendant, and marketed wine up and down the hills of San Francisco. Through it all, she wrote, filling notebooks and covering cocktail napkins with her thoughts. When her son grew old enough to drive himself to school, she sat down to figure out what she had said.

In her free time, Joyce travels, hikes the extensive trails and paths around her Marin County home, and fills the memory card of her digital camera. She lives in Mill Valley with her husband and six pond fish.