In 2014, Joanne Zienty won the first Soon to Be Famous Illinois Author contest, sponsored by the Illinois Library Association and RAILS Library System for her debut novel, The Things We Save. She was a finalist for the 2016 BookLife Prize sponsored by Publishers’ Weekly and in 2017 was named an “Emerging Voice” by the College of DuPage. Her second novel, Children of the Revolution, a revenge tale set in a dystopian Midwest, was published in 2020. A sequel, The Night Prophet, was just released. She’s given presentations at libraries and book clubs across the Chicago metropolitan area.