We’ve just lost one of our longest standing and most talented members. Joanna was a regular at Manuscript Meetings for as long as we can all remember, a quiet presence but always thoroughly engaged with whatever work was being read. Despite her recent illness and obvious frailty, she still tried to make it to the Circle whenever she could. She was a sparkly-eyed trooper for the written word.
From Gill Osborne:
I first met Joanna in January 2015 – my first manuscript meeting. She welcomed shy, nervous me with her gorgeous, bright smile and sandwiched me in-between her and Pat Belford, all warm and protected in the scary circle.
By the end of the evening, I had been recruited into the Womag group. I’d never written a short story for women’s magazines but there was no escape! Thank goodness I turned up. Cringing, yes. Embarrassed by my amateurish first attempt. But the bold, fair, honest, helpful, insightful and encouraging feedback from Joanna, Pat, Norah and Anne (later Jan, Linda, Suzanne), inspired me to keep trying.
What a family. What a home for a new writer. What a wonderful, shared love of writing. They helped me to grow. Baby steps: sit, crawl, toddle, run, and eventually jump for joy when I followed in their footsteps with publication in The People’s Friend. (Don’t scoff. It’s no mean feat, acceptance in the oldest women’s weekly in the country, established in 1870).
Despite being a regular attender for many years, Joanna rarely read on a Monday night. However, I’m honoured to have read much of her work. Many brilliant short stories, her first novel, ‘Bungalow Bill’, and a fair chunk of ‘Knickerbocker Gloria’, the sequel. Very sad that she didn’t get to finish it. I wish we knew the ending. We will have to guess. Jo was regularly placed in competitions, an expert with the fine brush strokes of sensory detail bringing her characters to life. An enviable imagination, turning her hand to all genres.
Womag was renamed Women’s Fiction when our writing for women’s magazines drifted. We were all writing novels. But it will always be Womag to me. Those meandering Saturdays in Pat’s cosy front room, Joanna in the chair, her egg timer piping up too soon. No rush. Always time to stray off the point, tell real-life, stranger than fiction stories. Time to laugh and cry together. Forever cherished memories.
Joanna, always brave, strong, positive, kind, supportive, funny, intelligent, well-read, talented. How I will miss you.
From Linda Fulton:
When I first met Joanna ten years ago on joining Leeds Writers Circle, she was immediately welcoming, soon inviting me to join what was then called Womag but eventually became The Women’s Fiction group. She led the group in an atmosphere of calm organisation, warmth, good humour and friendship and I always looked forward to our meetings.
Joanna had a literary writing style which seemed enviably effortless. After some publishing success with short stories for women’s magazines, she embarked on her first crime novel, Bungalow Bill. Set on the East Coast of Yorkshire in the 1930s, it narrated the exploits of an initially unintentional killer: a hapless, bungling young man called Timothy Onslow, misfit and loner. Only the landlady of a seaside guesthouse, reluctant psychic Phoebe, could intuit events and eventually lead the senior detective to the culprit.
Joanna’s characterisation immediately engaged, drew us into this suspenseful story. We were always eager for the next chapter which never disappointed. Since she had a real grasp of human nature, her characters were original, well-rounded and compelling, drawn with flair, empathy and understanding so that you believed in them, with all their flaws, motives and redemptive features. I remember the meeting when we confessed to feeling a little sorry for Timothy and didn’t “want him caught just yet”. 😊
Joanna had a talent for creating setting and time. Character voices, expressions, dialects, clothing and even meals were depicted with historical authenticity. Naturally we were delighted when she began a sequel called Knickerbocker Gloria. Protagonist Gloria had arrived in the same Yorkshire seaside town escaping a shady background in the East End of London and the clutches of an abusive lover. Searching for a new life, Gloria opened an ice-cream parlour and we willed this downtrodden woman on to entrepreneurial success. But cleverly, in true Joanna style, there was more to Knickerbocker Gloria than met the eye. Only Phoebe would pick up the uncanny vibes of what was really at the heart of Gloria’s story. Sadly, this wonderful novel remains unfinished.
Jo had her LWC competition successes over the years. In 2016 she was a awarded a Highly Commended in the speculative fiction competition, with The Spirit of Ymir. In the monologue competition in 2017, she won second prize with a subtle story narrated by an elderly woman who went on holiday to Spain but decided to stay there. The heart-wrenching twist came towards the end when the woman revealed her money had run out: she was homeless and living out of a supermarket trolley. When I told her how ‘wowed’ I was by it, she said simply, ‘Well I just read Talking Heads to see how the master did it.’ It was so like her to play down her own talent.
I am sure many members will remember Jo’s story Tunguska, narrated from the point of view of a wolf, which was placed second in the short story competition in 2020. (A later edit called Tungusta Meteorite 1908 won the Annavation award in 2022 on a different theme). Also in 2020, she won third prize in the poetry competition with Dating Game.
Joanna read aloud with a soft mesmerising quality and brought her character voices to life. I know she had belonged to a drama group and a short story study group, and was a regular member of the creative group Heydays at The Leeds Playhouse. She was always encouraging to other writers and at the Women’s fiction Group, she would mention the talents of new members of LWC who’d impressed her. And she remembered everyone’s name.
Joanna bore the last few years with great stoicism and courage, and after suddenly losing her husband Roy, she then faced her own recurring illness. Even during a difficult second round of treatment and feeling unwell, she supported Leeds Writers as often as she could with the help and kindness of Emma Storr transporting her to meetings. The last time I saw Joanna was at the poetry adjudication evening in March this year. We had a quick chat cut short when proceedings began. But it was so typical of Joanna that at the end of the meeting as members began to leave, she called me over to say: Linda, I really enjoyed your poem.
Thank you, Joanna, for your friendship, insightful feedback and encouragement to finish my own novel. We are so going to miss you.
From Suzanne McArdle:
Lovely Joanna, who has definitely been taken from us to soon. I wish I could hear more of the exploits of the wonderful characters from her post-war set novels – among them the psychic B and B owner involved with the local police inspector ,and Jo’s title character, Knickerbocker Gloria, proud ice cream purveyor, and a woman with a murky past which is about to catch up with her with murderous consequences. Jo could create such atmosphere on the page, and the Womag group were always keen for her next instalment.
Jo joined LWC about 20 years ago, just after I did, and quickly played a pivotal role within our then rather small organisation. Her warm personality and wry humour definitely helped to welcome in new members and played no small part in developing LWC into the thriving and lively group it is now.
When we moved to The Carriageworks Jo took on the responsibility of Carriageworks liaison, organising the room bookings. She had good knowledge of the theatre and its personnel since she was also involved in amateur dramatics there, so was a shoo-in for the role.
I was fortunate to be involved in the Womag group with Joanna and shared many car journeys with her to and from our meetings, where we would chat about writing, reading, and generally put the world to rights.
It was a shock when I discovered she was suffering from cancer, but she’s been so positive, making the most of her time over the past two years, enjoying holidays with her family, and getting together with writer friends when she could.
Her Womag friends were hoping to meet up with her soon, but will raise a cup of tea, or perhaps a knickerbocker glory, when we meet to remember her.
From Miriam Moss:
Jo was a wonderful kind person, an engaging and warm presence, that I will miss greatly. She was also an extremely talented writer. I have had the privilege of hearing her short stories in competitions and admired their sensitivity, skill and ability to draw readers into the worlds she created. Her entries were acclaimed by the judges and rightly so. I know too that she was an extremely talented novelist, who was at work on another novel prior to her passing. I am sure it would have been hugely entertaining. I send my condolences, support and strength to all those who knew her best, within the Circle but most importantly her immediate family, who will feel her loss most of all.
From Lucie Warrington:
Jo was a talented writer, a friendly face, and an ever positive voice in Leeds Writers Circle. I always looked forward to chatting with her at meetings, she encouraged and enthused about everyone’s projects. She will be greatly missed.
From Pat Pickavance:
Sharing a Writers Circle meeting with Jo was like having the sun come out. A lovely woman who radiated sympathetic intelligence and warmth, always ready with words of gentle encouragement for others, she was modest about her own considerable talent as a writer, and was (often!) deservedly successful in Circle competitions.
Towards the end of her life, she lost neither her facility for telling a good story (and keeping going with it) nor her appetite for seeking ways of improving. Her enduring curiosity about how to write better, despite her evident experience and wisdom, was an inspiration.
At the poetry adjudication back in March, rather tentatively I asked her how she was getting on with her novel. There was little time to talk, and she was visibly frail, but her pleasure in writer’s chat was undiminished. She smiled. Sunlight and humour played in her eyes as she confided, ‘Well, you know. One day at a time!’
Dear Jo, we shall miss her very much.
From Emma Storr:
Joanna was one of the first people I met when I joined Leeds Writers Circle over 10 years ago. She was immediately welcoming and warm, a quiet presence of hidden depths and very good company. She was very modest about her writing and did not often read her own work at the Manuscript evenings, which was a shame. When we did get to hear her work, her gentle sense of humour shone through.
We shared car journeys over many years and that was a good time to chat but of course I feel I wish I had got to know Joanna better and discovered more about her many talents. A highlight we shared last year was going to hear the crime writer Ian Rankin being interviewed at the Farsley Literature Festival, a thoroughly enjoyable occasion.
Over the last few years Joanna coped with illness and bereavement but always appeared positive and resilient. We will miss her a lot.
Leeds Writers Circle 