Joyce Dyer

Joyce Dyer (born July 20, 1947) is a U.S. writer of nonfiction. Her memoir Goosetown: Reconstructing an Akron Neighborhood tells the story of the author's attempt to remember the first five years of her life growing up in an ethnic neighborhood in Akron called Old Wolf Ledge (known to residents as "Goosetown" due to the many German immigrant families that kept domestic geese in their backyards), famous for its glacial formations, breweries, and cereal mills. Goosetown is the prequel to Gum-Dipped: A Daughter Remembers Rubber Town, her book about the decades when Akron was the Rubber Capital of the World. In it Dyer provides a loving but complicated portrait of her father and a view of the relationship between the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, its employees, and the city of Akron, Ohio. An earlier memoir, In a Tangled Wood: An Alzheimer's Journey, was published by Southern Methodist University Press in 1996, shortly after the death of Annabelle Coyne, the author's mother. Dyer has also edited two collections of essays, Bloodroot: Reflections on Place by Appalachian Women Writers and From Curlers to Chainsaws: Women and Their Machines. Her first book, The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings, was a scholarly study of Kate Chopin, a turn-of-the-century American writer. Joyce Dyer is Professor Emerita of English at Hiram College, where she directed the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature and held the John S. Kenyon Chair in English for several years. Recipient of the 1998 Appalachian Book of the Year Award, the 2009 David B. Saunders Award in Creative Nonfiction, the 2016 Independent Book Publisher Gold Medal Award for anthology, and Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Awards, Dyer spent the last ten years working on a book about abolitionist John Brown, who grew up in Hudson, Ohio, where the author lives. A mix of memoir, biography, history, and travel writing, Pursuing John Brown: On the Trail of a Radical Abolitionist was published by the University of Akron Press in May of 2022. In this book for general readers, Dyer reveals surprising details about John Brown’s life and grapples with troubling questions he raises. The book has been called "a thoughtful, elegantly written contribution to American studies" by Kirkus Reviews, awarded honorable mention by Civil War Monitor in their list of Best Civil War Books of 2022, and just selected as a finalist for both the 2023 Ohioana Book Award in the category of book about Ohio or an Ohioan and the Foreword Indies Best Book of the Year Award in biography for 2022. Indiana Magazine of History said Dyer worked "in a wholly creative, compulsively readable, fiercely original, and deeply contemplative way," and the Journal of Southern History said, "Dyer provides a narrative of intellectual and ethical reflections and growth. . . Further, in a climate that prioritizes the alleviation of supposed white discomfort over the instruction of history, this work will have particular personal value to educators." Dyer's biography is included in Contemporary Authors, volume 146, and in the New Revision Series, volume 91.