- Born in 1938 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. She earned her BA Degree at Douglass College in 1976, and a Masters of Arts Degree at Rutgers University in 1979
- Was an English teacher at South Brunswick High School for 25 years. She founded the Creative Writing program there. She also wrote a book, A TEACHER’S STORIES, in 1994, about her experiences there
- Joyce Lott’s chapbooks of poems are DEAR MRS. DALLOWAY (2004) and AN UNEXPECTED LIFE. Her anthology contributions are in COOL WOMEN, vol. 1 (2000); COOL WOMEN, vol. 2 (2002); PROPOSING on the BROOKLYN BRIDGE (2003); and COOL WOMEN, vol. 3 (2005). She has also contributed to the following journals–English Journal, Journal of New Jersey Poets, Kalliope, Ms., Paterson Literary Review, The Writer’s Chronicle, U.S. 1, and Writing of Our Lives. She is a recipient of the New Jersey Poetry Monthly Prize and the Allen Ginsberg Prize
- The poets who inspired Ms. Lott the most were Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Marie Howe, and Mary Oliver. From them, she found comfort and ease in expressing herself in poetic form. Her goal has always been to find herself through imagery, feeling, and poetic structure. Her poems tend to be personal and all are worth sharing
- Also wrote DEAR JOE (2018), a series of letters to her husband who died two months before his 92nd birthday. She published these letters as a celebration of the continuance of life
“We live in a society that fears death . . . those of us familiar with death need to speak out about our experiences.”
Joyce Greenberg Lott