Joan Shapiro

Joan was born in Bowling Green KY and grew up in Nashville TN. She graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Comparative Literature, and from Washington University in St. Louis with an MSW in Clinical Social Work. In St. Louis, she worked in book design, systems documentation, mental health consumer advocacy, healthcare reform, and community organizing. Shapiro had a psychotherapy practice for ten years, but styled her profession as “Macrotherapy,” which is the analysis, diagnosis, and treatment of large systems that may benefit from intervention and reform. Informed by her own “mental illness” in her young and middle adulthood, she used her experience to help others.

Nearly drowning in humidity, Joan moved to the Colorado mountains to paint landscapes and study figure drawing in 1997. She studied music theory and music production with Professor Dennis Woodrich and has worked as a songwriter and executive producer of music since 2014, culminating in her most recent projects. Joan published a book in 2023 entitled Stolen Seasons: Observations, Poems, Lyrics and Rants. The lyrics in that book inspired the albums Stolen Seasons: The Musical, vol. 1, and vol. 2, Naturescapes which was produced collaboratively with the dynamic Taylor Riley, owner/engineer of Fusion Audio Systems, and the equally dynamic duo, composers and performers Aaron and Jessica Seibert. Vol. 1 and 2 are now available on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon Music etc. and on this website.

 At 76, Joan finds life exciting and positive (other than the politics of the current moment) and is seeing that if one lives long enough and is extraordinarily fortunate, everything one has learned or experienced might begin to coalesce and make sense, and might even result in a new career. 

Joan lives in the San Juan Mountains with her two dogs, Cupcake (a Norwich Terrier) and Lollipup (a mini-Dachshund).