After her son got his driver's license, Joanna Campbell Slan  broke free from the carpool lane and pursued her lifelong dream of writing a novel. Naturally, she wrote about what she knows best--scrapbooking and motherhood with a slightly off-center twist. The result was Paper, Scissors, Death: A Scrapbooking Mystery (Sept. 2008), the first book in a new series from Midnight Ink.  

Joanna is the author of ten non-fiction books. Seven of those are on scrapbooking. So writing about a scrapbooker came naturally. She chose St. Louis as the setting because "I really love this place. There's so much history here. And this city is full of quirky, interesting facts that I can exploit for the sake of story."

Joanna grew up in tiny Vincennes (IN). She has two younger sisters, Jane, a respiratory therapist, and Margaret, an art teacher. Their father worked in the oil fields while he studied civil engineering. Their mother, a former ballerina, taught dance.  

"The best part about small town living was the freedom to walk to the library by myself. I was able to satisfy my love of books," says Joanna. "That fueled my desire to be an author." While in high school, she won her first award for writing. During her freshman year at Ball State University, her father abandoned the family; they went on welfare. To fund her education, Joanna worked full-time at a pet shop, edited the student magazine, freelanced for the campus newspaper, and wrote a column for the Muncie (IN) Star. She graduated cum laude--"Actually it was more like magna cum tired," she quips--with a degree in journalism and a minor in psychology. 

Exploring all aspects of the communications field, Joanna took a variety of jobs including positions in newspaper, radio, and public relations. In 1983, she married David Slan, owner of the Steinway Piano Gallery of St. Louis and a semi-professional poker player.  

Joanna won a Silver Anvil, Public Relations Society of America's highest honor, for her work on FarmAid. After the birth of the Slan's son, Michael, she taught public relations at Illinois State University, hosted a television talk show, wrote speeches for corporate executives, and traveled the globe as a motivational speaker. Sharing Ideas Magazine has named her one of the country's Top 25 Professional Speakers. 

Her first book was Using Stories and Humor: Grab Your Audience, two inspirational books and a series on scrapbooking soon followed. In 2004, she founded a contest for scrapbookers in the U.K called "The Best of British Scrapbooking," which still runs today. In 2007, she co-founded Sisters in Crime's Forensic University of St. Louis.