Joy Katz, a poet and writer, studied at Ohio State, Washington University in St. Louis, and Stanford. Katz worked as a graphic designer before beginning to write poems. She teaches in Carlow University’s ongoing Madwomen in the Attic workshops for women and serves as a thesis advisor in Chatham University’s MFA program. She is also an editor-at-large for Copper Nickel. In 2015, Katz co-founded the activist art collective Ifyoureallyloveme with theater director and humanitarian activist Cynthia Croot. Artists in the group use word, music, and performance, combined with pro-beauty and anti-racist strategies, to make art in Pittsburgh and other cities. Katz participated in choosing the winners of the Ragan Poetry Contest at Saint Vincent College in 2011.