Joanna Urban is a novelist and short story writer whose fiction and essays have appeared in Grace & Gravity, Gargoyle, the Washington Writers Publishing House, and Sunspot Lit, among other publications.
Joanna resides in Washington, D.C. and is currently at work on a novel. She writes a bimonthly Substack about storytelling and the writing life at penandprose.substack.com.
Posts of Interest
“Three Points of Contact” short story in Grace in Love
May 1, 2023
It was an honor to have one of my short stories published in the Grace and Gravity anthology’s tenth volume, Grace in Love. The Grace and Gravity anthology series, edited by Melissa Scholes Young, is a project highlighting D.C.’s vibrant community of women writers, and this volume is dedicated to stories of love — in all its beautiful and complicated forms.
It’s available at Politics and Prose, in-store and online. I hope you’ll read it, and I hope part of it speaks to you.
“A Real Writer” in Washington Writers Publishing House
March 25, 2023
From the editor: “In Joanna Urban’s A Real Writer, this second-person point of view flash takes us deftly inside the dreams of a driven twenty-something in our nation’s capital.”
editing my novel in Italy
In July 2022, I had the unique opportunity of attending the international Leopardi Writing Conference and residency in Recanati, Italy. This week-long intensive conference featuring workshops, one-on-one meetings, and craft lectures, gave me the support and tools to edit my debut novel, as well as mentorship from other writers. I am grateful to have been awarded the Italia scholarship for my work.
Joanna Urban 