Joan Tapper has been in the publishing world for more than 30 years, bringing out the best work of the writers and photographers she has commissioned and edited.

She is currently a Contributing Editor to Santa Barbara Magazine and Caribbean Travel & Life and a Consulting Editor for Destination Wine Country.

She is now working on The Old West on 5 Bits a Day, a tongue-in-cheek, time-travel guidebook to be published by Thames & Hudson in 2010, and is also writing The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of the Pacific Northwest, also to be published in fall 2010.

Thames & Hudson will publish her Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of the Southwest, in fall 2009.

Her book Shear Spirit: Ten Fiber Farms, Twenty Patterns, and Miles of Yarn was published by Potter Craft in 2008.

In 2007, she wrote The Most Beautiful Villages and Towns of California, published by Thames & Hudson, which also brought out Island Dreams – Caribbean in 2005. Her commemorative Caneel Bay: A Celebration of Fifty Years came out from Destination Media in 2006.

From 1988-2001 she was editor in chief of the award-winning Islands Magazine (serving also as editorial director of Islands Media from 1997). Before moving to Santa Barbara to take that position, she was founding editor of National Geographic Traveler (1983-1988), which was named Best Travel Magazine by the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) three times under her leadership.

Prior to establishing Traveler, she was a book editor at the National Geographic Society, specializing in large-format projects. She was also the founding editor of New Republic Books, in Washington, D.C., responsible for a small nonfiction list in politics, belles lettres, travel, and biography.

She received an M.A. in comparative literature from Harvard University after graduating from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in linguistics.

Island Dreams - Caribbean won the Gold Award for Best Travel Book in the 2006 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, sponsored by SATW.

Joan Tapper was named Journalist of the Year (1995) by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

She has assigned and edited numerous prizewinning magazine issues and stories recognized by the:
Western Publication Association ('Maggie") Awards (including Best Consumer Magazine)
PATA Gold Awards
SATW Lowell Thomas Awards
Canada's Northern Lights Award