Joan Mellen, Ph.D.

Joan Mellen, Ph.D., received her doctorate from the City University of New York under the direction of the distinguished literary critic and social historian Irving Howe. She is a professor of English at Temple University in Philadelphia. Mellen is the author of 16 books, including Privilege: The Enigma of Sasha Bruce (1983), a true crime story of the murder of the daughter of Ambassador David K. E. Bruce; and the dual biography Hellman and Hammett (HarperCollins: 1996), selected as one of the notable books of the year by The New York Times. She has written reviews and articles for publications ranging from The New York Times to Film Quarterly and lectured widely. Mellen met former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison in 1969 and began work on A Farewell To Justice, a biography of Garrison and his investigation into the murder of John F. Kennedy, shortly after Garrison's trial for alleged bribe-taking from pinball gambling interests, of which he was acquitted in 1973. For that work, she interviewed close to 1,000 people, and extensively utilized documents in the National Archives and elsewhere.