Joyce Hertzoff
Joyce Hertzoff retired in 2008 after forty-five years in the scientific literature publishing business. The Crimson Orb, the first novel in the Crystal Odyssey series, was originally published by the Phantasm Books imprint of Assent Publications in June 2014. Soon after, the flash mysteries, Natural Causes and Say Cheese were published in the anthologies The Darwin Murders and Tasteful Murders. A short story, Princess Petra, appears in The Way Back anthology, and another one, A Woman Hobbles into a Bar, appears in the charity anthology Challenge Accepted. Her young adult fantasy novella A Bite of the Apple, published in 2016, won the New Mexico Press Women’s fiction contest prize in the YA category and second place in the National Federation of Press Women contest. In 2017, she republished The Crimson Orb and published the sequel, Under Two Moons. In March 2018, she published the third book in that series, Beyond the Sea as well as a middle-grade book, So You Want to be a Dragon. Joyce often shares a booth at conventions and markets with RJ Mirabal. She also had a remembrance included in New Mexico Remembers 9/11 published in 2020. At the end of 2020, she published the fourth book in her Crystal Odyssey series, Homeward Bound.
She is a mentor and facilitator at Writers Village University, an online university offering MFA certificates. She is managing editor for fiction for the MFA program’s ezine The Village Square. She’s been a member of SouthWest Writers since 2010 and participates in both online and in-person critique groups. She is also a member of Sisters in Crime and the Albuquerque section Croak and Dagger.
