Joanne Jagoda, formerly a longtime resident of the Oakland Hills, now resides in a lovely retirement community in Walnut Creek where she goes to tap dancing and Zumba classes. Her short stories, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared on-line and in numerous print anthologies including, The Write Launch, Burningword Literary Journal, Third Harvest, Snapdragon, A Journal of Art and Healing, Quillkeepers Press, The Awakenings Review, The Deronda Review, Dreamers Magazine, Passager, Better After 50, and Still You, Poems of Illness and Healing. Joanne has received two Pushcart Prize nominations and has won a number of contests including first place in the 2022 Gemini Open contest. She continues taking Bay Area writing workshops enjoys Zumba on-zoom, and spoiling her seven grandchildren who call her Savta. Joanne’s first book of poetry My Runaway Hourglass, conceived while she was home sheltering-in-place, was published in summer of 2020 (Poetica Publications).