Short bio:

Joanna Margaret is a historian whose previous writing and scholarly work has focused on Florentine aristocrats in sixteenth-century France. She holds a PhD from the University of St. Andrews and an MFA from NYU, where Joyce Carol Oates served as her thesis advisor. The Bequest is her first novel.

Long bio:

Joanna Margaret is a historian who holds a PhD in 16th Century history from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. She is a graduate of Columbia University with a BA in French and History. More recently, she holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University, and received a scholarship to the New York State Summer Writers Institute in 2019. Joanna has conducted research in public and private archives in the US, Italy, and France, and has taught archival studies to undergraduates. In the UK, she taught history at the University of Dundee and the University of St Andrews, and worked as a private tutor. Her debut novel, The Bequest, which follows a group of young scholars in Europe as they unravel a five hundred year-old mystery with eerie repercussions in the present, was published by Scarlet/Penzler Publishers in 2022 and in the UK by Aries/Head of Zeus in 2023. Her short story, "Malena," was published in A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers (2023), edited by Joyce Carol Oates. Joanna's guide to "Where to Start with Dark Academia Fiction," appears at CrimeReads. She speaks fluent French and Italian, and has lived in St Andrews, Paris, and Florence. She currently lives in New York.