Joelle Hann is an award-winning writer whose essays and poems explore the nature of our deepest relationships, and whose articles have covered the highs and lows of yoga culture, as well as food, film, books, and travel.
Raised on an island in Western Canada, Joelle studied literature as an undergraduate at McGill University and as a graduate student at New York University (M.F.A. in poetry, M.A. in English literature). After, she worked in-house as a senior development editor at Bedford/St. Martin’s, a publisher that leads industry standards for quality and innovation. A decade later she jumped ship to freelance as a book doctor and collaborator. Since then, she’s developed and written many acclaimed books for authors in the realm of self-transformation, activism, spirituality, health, finance, and business.
Joelle is also a seasoned yoga teacher and practitioner. Her 20+ years of study and practice inform all of her editorial projects.
As a writer, Joelle works in many forms. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times, TimeOut New York, Poets & Writers, Yoga Journal, Yoga International, and other publications. She has covered many subjects, but writing about yoga culture became a way to explore both the ancient teachings and their range of expressions — from the sublime to the ridiculous — in contemporary American society.
As an essayist, she writes from a place of deep interiority, exploring family, culture, spirituality, and travel in an effort to understand all aspects, light and dark, of our unfolding lives. Her essays have appeared on NPR, YourTango, Geist, and others.
Joelle is also an award-winning poet and has published in many publications and anthologies including McSweeney’s, Matrix, Painted Bride Quarterly, Drunken Boat, Breathing Fire: Canada’s New Poets, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn and more. She has been a resident at Yaddo, MacDowell, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Banff Centre, and other juried art colonies internationally, and is the recipient of several arts grants for her work
