Joyce Kessel's poetry has appeared in The Healing Muse, WNY Poets Waging Words for Peace, cell2 soul, spitballmag.org, Nickel City Nights, Beyond Bones II and kind of hurricane press' anthrologies: Backlit Barbie and Point Mass.

Her first chapbook, Secret Lives, was published in 2011.

She has always resided in the Buffalo Southtowns and Southern Tier of Western New York.

She has been a participant at The Rustbelt Roethke and Mayapple / Woodstock Writers’ Retreats. Since 1989 she has been a co-editor of Earth’s Daughters, a feminist arts periodical

Presently she is Chair of the Liberal Arts Department and Director of the Creative Writing & Literature program at Villa Maria College where she teaches literature, writing, and interdisciplinary courses.