Joanna Celeste

When I was a child, my favorite color was “the rainbow”, because it encapsulated the spectrum of light and signified to me the spectrum of life. In a single beam of sunlight, there are so many colors: yellow and violet, red, green, orange, indigo and blue. Somehow, though the colors would not usually be expected to mix, they form something perfect. Life was like that for me—so much color, experience, sadness and joy all mixed together; yet it always formed something beautiful, if not occasionally bittersweet.

As I grew older, I was informed “rainbow” was not a color and I had to pick one. I chose blue—because there is the blue of the sky on a clear day and the blue-gray of fog and rain, and the blue-black of night, so it was perhaps the only color from the rainbow that could capture the heart of so many things in a single expression.

I started out telling stories in color, using markers, crayons and pencils to share my world. As it became clear that crayons were for kids (and I wasn’t a kid anymore) I found another form of expression: writing. I wrote poetry, short stories of magic, and I kept a diary. I found a way to escape the constraints of age or background; in writing I could converse with people across all sorts of boundaries, and through books I found my first friends.

People liked my stories. They didn’t care if I was fat, ugly, or wearing coke bottle glasses. For once, I belonged somewhere. Storytelling in writing became my means of sharing, either through poetry, stories, articles or even writing How-To’s.

I love to capture the magic in everyday life; to explore the line between reality and make-believe; to observe the dance between the light and the darkness. I still find it amazing that a beam of white light has color inherent in it. Perhaps similarly, joy and tragedy will often go hand-in-hand because they are part of the same fabric.

Life now seems more like a tapestry, with people, events and cultures woven together much like the colors in a rainbow blend—sometimes by themselves, the pieces don’t seem to fit, but they combine into something that is exquisite in its own way. I like finding my thread in it all, and discovering where I can weave strands of life into my writing.

At heart, I am a storyteller. I’m fortunate to have the possibility of expressing that in various ways–whether I’m teaching how to start a website, writing opinion, exploring characters in novels and vignettes, or illustrating. I enjoy editing the works of others to help them tell their own tales.

I’m grateful to share this website and my stories and illustrations with you.

This page has the following sub pages.

• Contact Me
• Illustrations
• My Philosophy on Editing
• Why I Write