The Word Mavens | Joyce Eisenberg

Joyce’s Page

Joyce Eisenberg is an author and editor with more than 25 years of experience. Though she’s written about topics ranging from aging to x-rays, she’s most passionate about travel and topics of Jewish interest. She loves to edit – whether it‘s a memoir or a magazine article – and to write personal essays.

Travel Writing

An enthusiastic traveler, Joyce Eisenberg has trekked through the poppy fields of northern Thailand (B.C. – before children) and the lava fields of Iceland (W.C. – with children). At home, she’s spent most of her career writing about her native Philadelphia, much of it for Fodor’s Travel Guides. She penned (on an Osbourne computer with 64K of memory) the first Fodor’s guide to the city in 1985. She’s contributed to Fodor’s The Thirteen Colonies: Travel Historic America (2003), Fodor’s Escape to Nature Without Roughing It and Fodor’s Road Guide USA and edited Fodor’s Guides to England, Hawaii, Paris, Austria and Spain.

For help with your next writing or editing project, contact Joyce.

Joyce has written for flyguides.com, an online travel guide for pilots, and was editor of the Delaware Valley edition of Travelhost Magazine and author of Let’s Visit Grenada (Chelsea House 1988). Her articles have appeared in Inside, Woman’s World, Globe Hopper, Military Lifestyles, Travel-Holiday and Walking magazines.

Jewish Topics

For 18 years, Joyce was editor of special supplements for the Jewish Exponent, a Philadelphia weekly newspaper. Her work there gave her the chutzpah to write the JPS Dictionary of Jewish Words (Jewish Publication Society, 2001) with Ellen Scolnic. In 2006, The Word Mavens updated and expanded the book for its second edition, entitled Dictionary of Jewish Words (A JPS Guide). Joyce and Ellen frequently speak to synagogue and community groups and write a newspaper column based on their book. Joyce has also edited Light in Darkness, a Holocaust memoir, and Fannie’s Favorites, a series of kosher cookbooks. Her chapter on interfaith marriage appears in Jewish Marital Status (Aronson 1989).

Marketing and Public Relations Projects

A conscientious writer and a respectful editor, Joyce lends her expertise to newsletters, press releases, capital campaigns, brochures, website content and radio advertisements. Her clients include Premier Builders, Delaware Hospice, Drexel University College of Medicine, Intern Exchange International, and the East Coast Center for Cosmetic Breast Surgery. She has been the editor of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Commission’s Culture Pages; Present Value, a book about community banking; and Common Ground: Beyond the Politics of Education, a publication of the Philadelphia Education Summit. She has contributed articles to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Home & Design section.

Joyce, who has taught memoir writing to senior citizens at Rosemont College, is past president of the Merion Park Civic Association. A 1973 graduate of Penn State University with a bachelor’s degree in English, Joyce lives in Merion with her husband, Ted, and two children, Ben and Samantha.