About Joyce

Joyce Sweeney is the author of fourteen novels for young adults and two chapbooks of poetry. Her first novel, Center Line, won the First Annual Delacorte Press Prize for an Outstanding Young Adult Novel.  Many of her books appear on the American Library Association's Best Books List and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers. Her novel Shadow won the Nevada State Reading Award in 1997.  Her novel Players was chosen by Booklist as a Top Ten Sports Book and by Working Mother magazine as a Top Ten for Tweens. Her novel,  Headlock (Holt 2006), won a Silver Medal in the 2006 Florida Book Awards and was chosen by the American Library Association as a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers. 

Her first chapbook of poems, IMPERMANENCE , was published in 2008 by Finishing Line Press, her second, entitled WAKE UP was published by Finishing Line in 2017.  In 2019, a non-fiction how to called PLOTTING YOUR NOVEL WITH THE PLOT CLOCK was released by Giantess Press. Joyce is now working on a YA fantasy series about Atlantis. She is repped by Nicole Resciniti of The Seymour Agency. 

Joyce worked as a writing teacher and coach for twenty-five years. During that time, she guided over sixty of her students to traditional publishing contracts, which earned them her ‘magic bean’ award.  In 2020, Joyce got the opportunity to take mentoring to the next level and joined The Seymour Agency. She specializes in picture books and middle grade novels, both fiction and non-fiction. 

Joyce lives in Coral Springs, Florida with her husband, Jay, and caffeine-addicted cat, Nitro. She loves Malbec, white cheddar popcorn, musical theater, and paranormal reality shows.