Context
Joanne Greenberg, born in Brooklyn in 1932, is an internationally renowned, award-winning Jewish-American author of 12 novels and four short story collections. Her best-selling novel, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, is a semi-autobiographical account of a teenage girl's three-year battle with schizophrenia. After her own battle with mental illness, Greenberg went on to earn a B.A. in anthropology and English from the American University of Colorado, where she became interested in Native American culture. The short stories she wrote based on her time living on a Navajo Reservation are often used for anthropological study.
Throughout her life, Greenberg has tried to garner respect and empathy for individuals suffering from physical and mental handicaps. During her years as a public school teacher, she helped develop programs for mentally ill deaf students. Her novel In This Sign chronicles the struggles of a deaf couple and their hearing daughter. Greenberg is currently an adjunct professor at the Colorado School of Mines where she has been an instructor since 1983. Her most recent novel, Where the Road Goes, deals with the impact of domestic violence on the victim's family. The idea for the novel was inspired by the murder of a former student by the student's estranged husband.
