Joanna grew up and went to university in Eastern Canada but it wasn’t until she moved to the Canadian Rockies permanently in 1998 that she really learned life’s lessons. After a few years working as a gearhead in some local climbing shops, she finally found a dream job that merged mountain culture with her love of outdoor pursuits when she began working for the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival. Joanna is now Director of Mountain Culture at Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and has been on the festival team since 2007. She reads more than 50 mountain literature books and watches 350 mountain films annually. In addition to being a voracious reader and film enthusiast, she is an avid backcountry skier and has skied throughout North America, The Alps, Kashmir, Japan and the Indian Himalaya. As a climber she has summited many of the classic 11,000 ft. peaks in her own backyard of the Rockies. Her writing has appeared in Highline Magazine, Gripped, The Canadian Alpine Journal, Mountain Life and Alpinist magazine and in 2021 she received an Alberta Magazine Award for an article she wrote about North America’s first female Everest summiteer, Sharon Wood. She is the author of Breaking Trail: The Chic Scott Story and her work appeared as part of the award-winning anthology Waymaking, a collection of women’s adventure writing published in autumn 2018. She is the former North American representative for the International Alliance for Mountain Film. She has served on many film juries including; Kendal Mountain Festival (UK) Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (Nepal), Ulju Mountain Film Festival (South Korea), Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (Canada) and Spotkania z Filmem Gorskim (Poland). Her latest book Mountaineering Women was released in September 2025.
Canadian author and climber Joanna Croston will present her highly anticipated new book Mountaineering Women. The book celebrates the achievements of twenty different women climbers from around the world many whose stories have never been told. Joining Joanna in conversation will be renowned American climber Lynn Hill.
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