Joan L. Chase (November 26, 1936 Wooster, Ohio – April 17, 2018) was an American novelist. Biography Joan Chase moved from town to town in Ohio throughout her childhood. She graduated from the University of Maryland magna cum laude. From 1980 to 1984, she was an assistant director of the Ragdale Foundation. She was a member of PEN. Her first novel, During the Reign of the Queen of Persia was published in 1983 and won the PEN/Hemingway Prize for First Fiction by an American author. The book was republished in 2014 by New York Review Books with an introduction by Meghan O'Rourke. Death Chase died on 17 April 2018 at the age of 81, after a long illness. Awards 1983, PEN/Hemingway Prize 1984, Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize 1987, Whiting Award 1990, Guggenheim Fellowship Works References External links Whiting Foundation Profile 1936 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American novelists People from Wooster, Ohio University of Maryland, College Park alumni Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women