Joy Hanford was born unexpected, mostly due to a misread ultrasound, but still true none the less. She spent most of her young life living in various places throughout the American Midwest before settling in Bloomington, Indiana where she went to art school, fell in love and proved you don’t need to pass high school gym to get a college degree. She held down a variety of jobs including artisan bread baker, university secretary, resident potter and ceramics teacher, participated in a number of art shows, laughed, danced and popped countless bowls of popcorn before becoming a mother to Henrique, aka Hank, in 2008 and then moving to her husband’s home country of Portugal in 2010.

It was in Portugal, after selling all of her worldly possession including all of her ceramics equipment that Joy began writing, something she always loved but was previously too distracted to peruse. In 2012 she began her blog www.conversationswithhank.com where she began to publish a daily conversation she had with her then five year old. Having spent the two previous years posting the unique conversations she and Hank shared on social media for her friends and family Joy realized that not only were they thought provoking, but that their conversations and her ramshackled, hyper explanatory approach to parenting was helpful to others.

It was because of these daily conversations that her blog caught the attention of Ardozia, a company focused on creating digital content for children, and after collaborating on a couple of projects the Lisbon based company offered her a publishing contract for her first two children’s books, Billy Blankenstooth and Shoe Mice. Together Joy and the Ardozia team created two ways of reading her stories: through a fixed formatted application to be read using the Kindle reading app or an animated version offered exclusively through the iBooks reading app.

A by product of living in majestic Portugal, especially living in the historic city of Guimarães, is the opportunity to write about her daily life and adventures. Joy took advantage of her surroundings and love for travel and has written features for publications such as The Portuguese American Journal, Global Living Magazine and many more.

In November 2014 Joy and her boys welcomed a new addition to their family, Amália Sofia, aka Molly, is their silly, growling, giggling Vimaranes (which is what you call a person born in Guimarães) and she couldn’t be more loved and appreciated.

For now Joy continues writing, reading, drawing, and laughing each and every day. You can find her by visiting www.conversationswithhank.com or daily at all her social media hubs.