Joy E. Held
JoyEHeld.com
2024
JOY E. HELD is an author, educator, editor, entrepreneur, and literary citizen responsible for this site and its contents. She is the author of
Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2020)
Writer Wellness Workbook: A Guided Workbook and Journal to Accompany Writer Wellness: A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity (Headline Books, Inc., 2023)
The Mermaid Riot (Melange, 2024) Young Adult Historical Fantasy
She writes spicy historical fiction under a pen name.
She is the winner of multiple writing and book awards:
West Virginia Writers, Inc. Annual Writing Contest, Honorable Mention, Novel, 1998.
New York Book Festival, Honorable Mention, Writer Wellness, 2020.
Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Finalist, Writer Wellness, 2021.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, Member of the Year, 2020.
Northeast Ohio Romance Writers of America, First Book Award, 2020.
She is an adjunct faculty member in the Southern New Hampshire University Online MFA Creative Writing.
She is a proud graduate of Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA with an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction.
She is a member of The Authors Guild and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
Joy is the founder and CEO of My WRITEDAY Subscription Box for writers and readers
Writer Wellness: A Writer's Path to Health and Creativity
Wellness is an overall approach to maintaining good physical, mental, and emotional health. Writer Wellness provides anyone with a developmental guide to achieving and perpetuating good health and creativity.
Writer Wellness WORKBOOK and GUIDED JOURNAL
The Mermaid Riot
Serena Robinson and Tobi Doyle have been friends for sixteen years. Living next door to each other along the Ainsley River in South Carolina, they built sandcastles, played pirate ship, and collected shells virtually every day until a freak accident at the Robinson Phosphate Mine Company takes away someone near and dear to Tobi’s heart. From then on, Tobi’s mother, Mrs. Doyle, blames Serena’s father, Mr. Robinson and his thirst for money for her husband’s death. Serena and Tobi are torn apart by their parents’ animosities, and the lifelong friends must go their separate ways in a town devastated by a recent war.
When Serena and Tobi witness the neighborhood apothecary Dr. Nathan Trask lifting a limp body from his fishing boat, they don’t realize they will be forced back together in a life-or-death effort to save the mermaid, Mari-Morgan, from Dr. Trask’s greedy plans. Serena has tried for years to convince Tobi that mermaids are real—her nanny Rosie told her so—but he doesn’t believe. However, Tobi discovers that not only do mermaids exist, but they have magical charms that are almost impossible to resist.
Serena may lose her best friend unless she can return the bewitching merwoman to the sea before she takes Tobi’s heart and soul to the bottom of the ocean.