Joyce Englander Levy is a mother, poet, writer, teacher, and she has been working in the wellness industry for over twenty years. She is currently working towards her M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Florida International University. Her debut chapbook, Pier 40, was recently published by Finishing Line Press, and it is available through Amazon as well as Finishing Line Press.

Pier 40 is a poetic memoir, which invites readers to consider what is in abundance, and what treasures they can leave behind for someone else to find. The narrative takes place on a walk with a mother and her young children through the West Village in August of 2020 shortly after the narrator made a difficult decision to resign from her job. She is trying to rectify the motherhood she wanted with the one she is responding to. While walking along the Hudson River to Pier 40, the mother realizes she is looking at turning forty and going through what some call a midlife crisis, but she considers an identity renovation. Along the walk, readers feel as though they’re having a conversation they’ve been longing to have. The dreams of adulthood meet reality in an ode to New York City—with imaginative children to provide context and comic relief. Pier 40 is a book that honors the work of motherhood, dignifies the foundational moments of childhood, and challenges the ways our society could improve for the benefit of all. 

The narrator takes strides to understand the nature of human experience through personal introspection and meditative observations on the changing post-pandemic world we inhabit. The chapbook is structured in distinct sections in which scenes, memories, and reflections are braided together in a hybrid of poetry and memoir. One can tell by the close attention to detail that the author has spent a lifetime studying the parasympathetic nervous system, and how lines of poetry can soothe the nerve endings. As the narrator pulls apart the past, the threads of the story weave together and readers feel cared for through this artfully crafted text.

Like poets Mary Oliver, Kenneth Koch, Toni Morrison, and Rita Dove, Joyce was born in Ohio. She graduated with honors from Miami University in 2003 with degrees in Psychology and Linguistics with a minor in Poetry. Additionally, while in university she did research in the field of Positive Psychology, and explored relationships between Emotional Intelligence, Flow, and Buddhism’s Mindfulness. Through this work, she was awarded a grant by the Dean of Student Affairs, Dr. Dennis Roberts, Ph.D., to co-create a leadership curriculum that is still being taught at Miami University today. This, in addition to doing her first (of many) Yoga Teacher Trainings, led her to establish a career in the wellness industry.

Joyce has lived and worked in Chicago, New York City, Montauk, and Miami. Most notably she was a co-founder of Yoga Shanti in New York City, and she was the Head of Mindful Movement for The Well at its founding.