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Joan L. Cannon
Joan L. Cannon liked to use her middle initial because so few of her maiden namesakes are left anywhere (Huguenot LaPrades). She was retired teacher, retail manager and author of three novels in paperback, Settling and Maiden Run , a collection of short stories called Peripheral Vision and her latest, a collection of poetry, My Mind Is Made of Crumbs, all available from Amazon and on order from independent booksellers.
Joan's most recent novel is Second Growth and can be purchased through Amazon. From childhood, there have been toss-ups for her avocations among reading, riding horses, painting, local flora and fauna and writing.
Editor's note: We were gifted by Joan's vibrant, inspired, writing for the website and plan to revisit her essays often. Joan passed away on October 10, 2017.
Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer that you can provide, even if it's not earth-shaking. Besides, we all know more about ourselves than we do about anyone else. I've lived a life that is unique in the sense that every single one, like every single snowflake, is singular, but without any outstanding characteristics. In spite of that, I want to talk about it. more »
Sections read like poetic romance, others like adventure, some like fantasy of the best and most convincing kind, some like philosophy. The pace varies much in the way one's daily experience might in a place where the only means of transport are one's own legs, horses, or boats without motors. The reader is fully immersed in a complete new life in a very few pages, and by the last of over a thousand, has been in some way imprinted. The outstanding characteristic of Islandia is that it will leave no reader unmoved, or even untouched. To make your way through this tour de force of imagination will change you, according to what aspect of it touches you most closely. more »
Joan L. Cannon writes: Except for the military, men worked at desks and in boardrooms, women did no housekeeping, no childcare, little or no charity work. Like a perfectly arranged workshop, their lives were ordered, with a place for everything (and everyone), and everything in its place. Not many writers could hold modern attentions with such a world, yet it is more real than if it were shown on a movie screen.
The characters in their houses, the décor, the customs, the music and art and social events are so meticulously portrayed that the reader is like an eavesdropper. more »
Joan L. Cannon wrote:
Archetypes, mysteries, simple clues
that only fingers and toes, sticks and stones
and flashes of inspiration require
for universes to be disclosed ...
symbols for functions and formulae
for proof; logic so easy for some —
why am I innumerate? more »
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Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because ...
Worth Revisiting: Joan Cannon's Review of Islandia, a Novel of Remarkable Length Nowadays
Revisiting Favorite Books: The Forsytes and the Acquisitive Victorians
During Poetry Month, A Joan Cannon Poem and Math and Metaphor: Flashes of Inspiration Require for Universes to be Disclosed
