348 ratings | 18 reviews | avg rating:4.18

Joan’s Year In Books

Joan’s 2024 Year in Books

Take a look at Joan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.

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Joan Dempsey’s Followers (329)

Joan’s Bookshelves

to-read (172)
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read (438)
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art-theft (8)
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Joan’s Friends (967)

Justin Tate

1,149 books | 4,776 friends

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5,072 books | 426 friends

Nancy

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Samantha Kolber

3,646 books | 378 friends

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909 books | 151 friends

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352 books | 141 friends

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Joan Dempsey

Goodreads Author

Born

June 25

Website

http://thisishowitbeginsnovel.com/

Twitter

LiteraryLiving

Genre

Fiction, Contemporary, Suspense

Influences

Elizabeth Strout, Maggie Stiefvater, Stephen King, Adrian McKinty, Emm ...more

Member Since

February 2017

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/joan_dempsey

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One of “5 more writers over 50” to watch. —Poets & Writers Magazine

Winner of the Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award, Joan Dempsey is the author of the novel, This Is How It Begins, which won a bronze Independent Publisher Book Award for literary fiction and was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award, and Sarton Women's Book Award. The novel was also on the American Library Association's 2018 Over the Rainbow List of Literature Titles.

Amazon: https://bit.ly/AmazonJDempsey
Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/shop/joandempsey
Facebook: https://bit.ly/FacebookJD ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

Just dropping in from Facebook to let you know I am here, too. Your page looks great! Very polished and professional. One question about THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS: What took you so long? I've been following your great writing advice blog for quite a while. From your wise, measured advice, I thought you were a veteran writer.

Joan Dempsey Nice to see you, Carolyn, and thanks for the great question!

I've been a serious writer since 2000, when I took my first fiction workshop at Grub Stree…moreNice to see you, Carolyn, and thanks for the great question!

I've been a serious writer since 2000, when I took my first fiction workshop at Grub Street Writers in Boston. Since that time, in the margins of my life as I've worked full-time at non-writing jobs, I've worked diligently to learn the craft of writing and build a writing career. I wrote a complete novel, entitled VIGILANT, before I wrote THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS. Agents and publishers to whom I submitted VIGILANT, while praising my chops as a novelist, felt it was too quiet and literary for them to easily sell.

After some time, I was deeply and happily into writing THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS, and continuing to push for the publication of VIGILANT was taking far too much of my precious, in-the-margins-of-my-day-job writing time, and so I set it on a shelf and focused intensely on my second novel.

During the past seventeen years, in addition to writing the two novels, I've published a few short pieces (stories, personal essays), earned my MFA in fiction writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, earned a teaching certificate (in writing—also from Antioch), and have critiqued hundreds of manuscripts by other creative writers (fiction, non-fiction, memoir).

I started writing THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS in October, 2009, completed it in summer, 2015, and it will be published on October 3, 2017. The first 2+ years I spent doing research into the topical areas involved in the novel: the Warsaw ghetto in WWII, the psychology of those who rescued Jews in WWII, the modern day "culture wars" between religious fundamentalists and the LGBT community, art theft and Polish contemporary art, and more. The following three years I wrote for only about an hour a day, and then I quit my day job to focus full time for a year on finishing the novel, which I did. Fourteen months of seeking a publisher, and finally a signed contract with She Writes Press in September of 2016. And here we are!

So, as you can see, I've been an incredibly active writer for seventeen years now, and hopefully you'll find that THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS provides evidence that I am, indeed, a "veteran writer." Not yet widely published, but nonetheless "veteran." :)

Does that help answer your question, Carolyn? Thanks again for asking.(less)

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How do you get inspired to write?

Joan Dempsey It honestly doesn't take much. I fell in love with writing from my first serious fiction workshop at Grub Street Writers back in 2000, and I've been i…moreIt honestly doesn't take much. I fell in love with writing from my first serious fiction workshop at Grub Street Writers back in 2000, and I've been inspired ever since. Truly, there's nothing I'd rather do than muck around with sentences and books.(less)

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Combine Editions
Joan Dempsey’s books

Average rating: 4.23 · 599 ratings · 184 reviews · 1 distinct work • Similar authors

This Is How It Begins

4.23 avg rating — 599 ratings — published 2017 — 4 editions

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Joan is Currently Reading

Joan Dempsey is currently reading

The Scenic Route

by Binnie Kirshenbaum

bookshelves: currently-reading, fiction

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Aug 06, 2025 07:41AM

Joan Dempsey is currently reading

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

by Stephen Fry

bookshelves: currently-reading, poetry

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Jul 04, 2025 08:54AM

Joan Dempsey is currently reading

This Is How It Begins

by Joan Dempsey (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: currently-reading, art-theft, criminal-justice, favorites, fiction, holocaust

read in October 2021

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Joan Dempsey said: " I was so pleased when the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPYs) chose to award the 2018 Bronze Medal in Literary Fiction to This Is How It Begins.

Great to see it here in Goodreads on the list of IPPY winners! I'm giving away 5 copies right now. ...more "

Oct 19, 2021 06:12AM · see review

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Joan’s Recent Updates

Joan Dempsey wants to read The Rose Field (The Book of Dust, #3) by Philip Pullman	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Oct 23, 2025 11:56AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Rose Field by Philip Pullman <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joan Dempsey and 1 other person liked Allison's review of This Is How It Begins: "Set in Massachusetts. Ludka is an art professor. Her husband, Izaac was the attorney general. She helped rescue him as a child in Poland in WWII. Their son, Lolek, is the state senate president. Lolek's son, Tommy, is fired from his teaching job beca" Read more of this review »
Oct 16, 2025 02:30PM · see review
Joan Dempsey made a comment on Karen Klink’s review of This Is How It Begins " Thank you, Karen! I'm so glad you enjoyed the novel, and I appreciate your kind review. ...more "
Oct 16, 2025 02:29PM · see review
Joan Dempsey and 1 other person liked Karen Klink's review of This Is How It Begins: "This intricate novel succeeds on every level. Though I found the large cast of characters daunting, the most important ones came through clearly. A tale of two conflicting beliefs, the author presents each with consummate skill. The plot is powerfull" Read more of this review »
Oct 16, 2025 02:29PM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — This Is How It Begins by Joan Dempsey <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Joan Dempsey wants to read Stealing: Life In America: A Collection of Essays by Michelle Cacho-Negrete	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Joan Dempsey wants to read Red City (The New Alchemists, #1) by Marie Lu (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Joan Dempsey is now following Binnie Kirshenbaum Author of Rabbits for Food
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More of Joan's books…

Joan’s Quotes

“It's long been a point of mine that the freedom of religion, which this country alleges to support, works two ways. We're not only free to practice the religion of our choice, we should be free from having someone else's religion practiced on us.”
― John Irving

tags: freedom-of-religion, freedom-of-speech

4 likes

“If we take the capsulation of minorities within the nation-state as a given condition, the implication of the Holocaust is that the life and liberties of minorities depend primarily upon whether the dominant group includes them within its universe of obligation; these are the bonds that hold or the bonds that break.”
― Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust

tags: holocaust, holocaust-literature

0 likes

“Danny would have thought it comical if it had come from any other source, on any other day, in any other country. But Curtis had come to the table with something they'd never expected, something they would have thought outmoded and outlived in the modern age: a kind of fundamental righteousness that only the fundamental possessed. Unfettered by doubt, it achieved the appearance of moral intelligence and a resolute consciousness. The terrible thing was how small it made you feel, how weaponless. How could you fight righteous rage if the only arms you bore were logic and sanity?”
― Dennis Lehane, The Given Day

tags: freedom-of-religion, freedom-of-speech, religious-fundamentalism

5 likes