Joan Frank

Joan's new novel, Make It Stay, has just been released by The Permanent Press.

In early reviews, Publishers' Weekly calls Make It Stay "a meditation on the collision between an enduring friendship and a singular marriage, both of them, in ways, life-saving ... poignant ... painterly."

Kirkus Reviews (in a starred review!) has proclaimed Make It Stay "first class fiction." And the San Francisco Chronicle called it "masterful."

Joan was born to New Yorkers in Phoenix, Arizona, and has lived in Hawaii, West Africa, Paris, and San Francisco. She studied with author Thaisa Frank (no relation) at the University of California in Berkeley, CA, and holds an MFA in creative fiction from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, NC.

Joan is a MacDowell Colony- and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, a Pushcart Prize- and Bread Loaf Fellow nominee, winner of the ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award, Richard Sullivan Prize, Dana Award, Michigan Literary Fiction Award, Iowa Writing Award, and Emrys Fiction Award. She has received grants from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and Sonoma Arts Council; been a two-time nominee for the Northern California Book Award in Fiction; and named a San Francisco Library Literary Laureate. She has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University, and continues to teach in private consultation. (Please click on "Editing and Teaching," above.)

Joan also regularly reviews literary fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review. She lives in Northern California.

Make It Stay is Joan's fifth work of fiction.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR MAKE IT STAY:

Wry, compassionate ... Reminded me of two of the best English writers of similar character-driven novels: Penelope Fitzgerald and Penelope Lively, both masters of the glancing but devastating observation.
— Christine Sneed, author of Portraits of a Few People I've Made Cry


"The novel is a pitch-perfect blend of meticulously wrought sentences that support a slowly unraveling narrative of Northern California life. This is by far the best novel I've read all year, something the board members and jury of the Pulitzer Prize missed entirely, shortlisting the usual suspects and awarding the Prize for Fiction to no one this year. One can only hope the National Book Award will see beyond the insular confines of Manhattan and give Joan Frank a national literary prize well deserving of her talents." - Karl Wolff, Chicago Center of Literature and Photography


"A stylistic tour de force. I can't imagine any lover of literary fiction not being deeply moved (and shaken a bit) by Make it Stay."
— Bob Wake, Cambridge Book Review


A beautifully written love story—love between spouses and between friends—for those of us who know that the only story that matters is about the frightening fragility of life.
— Elizabeth Benedict, author of The Joy of Writing Sex; editor of Mentors, Muses & Monsters


Brilliant, moving, and original.
— Jeffrey Levine, author of Rumor of Cortez


Elegant, lyrical prose ... Frank’s consciousness of life’s details is exquisite and rare."
— Luan Gaines, Curled Up With a Good Book


Gorgeously written.
— Jane Vandenburgh, author of A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century


A genuine wonder of a book—a deeply moving reflection on the nature of friendship and love, how past informs present, life’s magnificent interconnectivity. An entire world is here, as Joan Frank deftly weaves a tale that illuminates the lives of her characters, their imperfections and desires revealed in least expected moments. Recognition unfolds into something resembling transformation. A story filled with the stuff of life—nothing less than astonishing.
— Matthew Iribarne, author of Astronauts and Other Stories