Joanne Esser is the author of the poetry collections All We Can Do Is Name Them, (Fernwood Press, October 2024), Humming at the Dinner Table, (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and the chapbook I Have Always Wanted Lightning (2012). Recent work appears in Great Lakes Review, Humana Obscura, I-70 Review, Dunes Review, The Main Street Rag, and Orca, among other journals. She earned an MFA from Hamline University and has been a teacher of young children for over forty years. She is in her last year of serving as the
director and art studio teacher at All Seasons Preschool of Eagan, an intergenerational nature-based early childhood center. She lives with her husband in Eagan, Minnesota.