Joan Baxter is a Canadian anthropologist, journalist and award-winning author who lived and worked for 21 years in Africa.

For many years and from many countries she reported for the BBC World Service, Associated Press, and also Reuters. She has contributed to many radio programs of the CBC and to WGBH’s The World in Boston. Her writing — articles, features and columns — have also appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, The Sunday Telegraph, Washington Post, the EU Courier, BBC Focus on Africa Magazine, and the Chronicle Herald in her native Nova Scotia.

Dust from Our Eyes: Searching for a True Picture of Africa is Baxter’s fourth non-fiction book about Africa. In 2001, she won the Evelyn Richardson Prize for her non-fiction book, A Serious Pair of Shoes – An African Journal won. Her critically acclaimed book that the late Peter Gzowski described as “magical”, Graveyard for Dreamers — One Woman’s Odyssey in Africa, was short-listed for the Evelyn Richardson award in 1995. In 2006, her best-selling book, The Hermit of Gully Lake, was short-listed for the Atlantic Independent Booksellers’ Choice Award.

Joan Baxter has recently been appointed as the incoming Executive Director of the Nova Scotia-Gambia Association, a Canadian non-governmental organization that promotes health (HIV/AIDS) awareness among students in both the Gambia and Sierra Leone.

She also worked as the Senior Science Writer and Editor at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), with its headquarters in Nairobi. She has also worked as a consultant writer and editor for the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), in Ottawa. Before moving to Africa to marry in 1982, she worked for one year as a field assistant at the Tropical Biology Station Los Tuxtlas, on the Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Baxter holds an MA and BA (Honours) in Anthropology from the University of Alberta. Her Masters thesis was based on a year-long field study of spider monkeys in Tikal National Park in Guatemala. She received her BJ (First Class Standing) from the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Joan Baxter is married, mother of two, and she has travelled and worked on four continents. She now divides her time between Canada and Africa.