During the Reign of the Queen of Persia

Joan Lucille Chase (born Strausbaugh) was an American novelist born on November 26, 1936, in Wooster, Ohio, who graduated magna cum laude from the University of Maryland. Her debut novel During the Reign of the Queen of Persia (1983) won the PEN/Hemingway Prize and other awards, establishing her reputation; she later wrote The Evening Wolves (1990) and Bonneville Blue (1991), and taught at institutions like the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She died on April 17, 2018, in Needham, Massachusetts, from Parkinson's and Lewy Body diseases. Read more →