Joyce Wise Dodd believes that the unexamined life is not worth living. Her historical heroes, among many, are Rabelais, Thomas Paine and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

 

Dodd grew in in the foothills of far Southwest Virginia and started writing for the Washington County News when it was a mom-and-pop operation and she was a teen-ager. Finishing college she moved into broadcasting with stings at WRVA in Richmond, and then public broadcasting special programs.

 

She found her love of the classroom at the University of Richmond when she picked up adjunct courses in the English department, teaching abstract poetry to confused freshmen. She moved to Virginia Commonwealth University, teaching there 14 years and spending another five in administration. After VCU, she worked at the Richmond Times-Dispatch as a copy editor.

 

After leaving Richmond for family reasons, Dodd worked as a fund raiser at Emory & Henry and then ran Congressman Rick Boucher's ninth district reelection campaign in 2002. last winter, she accepted a teaching position at the Appalachian State University.

 

The piscean dreamer is anticipatory about discovering the mysteries of the high country but hopes eventually to return to a concrete jungle near a large body of water.