SWEENEY, Joyce

Joyce Sweeney was born Joyce Hegenbarth in Dayton, Ohio. She graduated from Wright State University, summa cum laude, and earned graduate credits at Ohio University in English and Creative Writing.

Since she was eight years old, Joyce had dreamed of becoming a writer. Determined and driven to be a writer, Joyce spent years developing her own writing style. Growing up as an only child with one parent, she adjourned to her fantasies about family life. Despite the limitations of widowhood and family finance, Joyce's mother provided two trips to Europe, enhancing her daughter's imagination and broadening her scope of the world.

At seventeen, Joyce earned twenty-five dollars with the publication of her first short story, "Where Do You Belong in the Jungle?" in New Writers Magazine. She continued to write fiction and became an accomplished writer of short stories. Joyce took first place in the Annual College Scholarship Internship Contest sponsored by Playgirl magazine. Her college literary magazine, Nexus, published her short story "Grass". "Shattered Suns" appeared in Green's Literary Magazine. In 1983, Co-Ed magazine published "Spanish Horses".

Also in 1983, Joyce won the Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers First Young Adult Novel Contest for Center Line. Since winning this competition, she has published 13 novels, including Face the Dragon, The Dream Collector, Shadow, Waiting for June, Players, Headlock, and The Guardian. In fact, Shadow won such an acclaim that in 1995, the Young Adult Library Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association recommended Shadow as one of its Books for Reluctant Young Adult Readers.

Since her auspicious beginning she has continued to publish appealing novels for teens on a variety of topics, among them friendships, family relationships, and self-discovery. Four of those novels have been named Best Books for Young Adults, four have been Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, and Booklist included Players among its Top Ten Sports Books in 2002.

Mrs. Sweeney lives and works in Coral Springs, Florida, where she consistently participates in book signings, visits schools, and attends special events pertaining to writing and young adult literature.