Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, Joellen Bland has lived in Lexington, Virginia, in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, for the past twenty years. She is currently Director of the VMI Theatre at Virginia Military Institute and also an editorial assistant at the George C. Marshall Foundation. A graduate of Purdue University, she has been active in all phases of community, children’s, church and college theatre, including directing, stage-managing, costuming and acting. She has worked in public relations and educational television, and has had over forty plays published, mostly adaptations of classics. Her playwriting awards include the Shenandoah Valley Playwrights competition and the Festival of Firsts Playwriting Competition. She has been married to her historian husband, Larry, for over thirty years, and has two grown sons, Neil and Ryan.