Joanne Arnott was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She attended the University of Windsor in Ontario and trained at a Co-operative Employment for Women program, where she received training in computer skills and organizational work. After a brief period in Taiwan with her family, Arnott returned to Canada where she took her first Unlearning Racism workshop.  During this period, her first four books,  Wiles of Girlhood, My Grass Cradle, Ma MacDonald and Breasting the Waves: On Writing and Healing, where published by feminist publishing houses.  Arnott is a writer, editor, mentor, professor and judge in literary contests. Her projects include the organization of online groups for indigenous mother writers, the co-organization of Aboriginal Writers Collective West Coast. She has published and helped helped to edit several collections of indigenous women writers, among them Honouring the Strength of Indian Women: Plays, Stories, Poetry by Vera Manuel. Besides her work in the literary world, Arnott has recently begun teaching classes on Indigenous Perspectives in Creative Writing and Poetry. She is also a founding member of the Richmond First Nations Parent Support Group, now known as Pathways Indigenous Family Centre. She mentions that she writes “with a musical ear and a sensory or sensual base, and I draw on many cultures to inform myself”.  Her poetry deals with both social issues and the celebration of life and nature.