Joni Hirsch Blackman

Joni Hirsch Blackman can’t remember not writing — she was the high school yearbook editor, a college newspaper reporter, a lifestyles reporter for a small daily paper in Texas. A stint at Denver’s Associated Press bureau preceded 5 years as a general assignment and city hall reporter for The Denver Post. A move to Seattle created opportunities to work for several national magazines and to begin to write a few columns. A goodbye column about her Seattle cul-de-sac sparked a desire to write more like those.

 

Settling in Naperville a few years later, Joni noticed her local newspaper lacked the perspective of many newcomers to town. She sent an unpublished column she’d written to the new managing editor and a new career began — Cul-de-sacs, named after what she’d left behind & where she landed.

 

Joni also has written a subsequent recurring column about the history of many downtown Naperville building (Building Memories) and wrote the Look to the Western Sky column for West Suburban Living magazine for many years. She is also the author of  Downtown Naperville (Arcadia Books) and This Used To Be Chicago (Reedy Press.) In 2028, her debut picture book will be released from Chronicle Books.