Joyce Dean was loved by miniaturists, readers and writers alike, all over the world. Joyce arrived at Ashdown publishing at about the same time as the floorboards and worked there at every job that can be done in a publishers. Editors came and went but Joyce was there always, helping new editors get started and filling in when they left. Most readers know her as the Editor of Dolls House World magazine though she could do all that was needed in any magazine to get the words and the pictures on the page.
I encountered Joyce when I started to write for Dolls House World because Lynne Medhurst asked me to do so. Joyce turned quickly from a voice on the phone to a friend, as she did for so many writers. Her great skill was not merely to encourage and suggest but to edit utterly unobtrusively. Joyce always talked about a magazine being representative of many voices and of letting the voices come through. She did so to perfection, any magazine she had put together was always interesting and varied and guaranteed to be a good long read. Joyce could turn her hand to almost anything involved in publishing, editing or broadcasting and was meticulous in her work. I once phoned her twenty minutes before a magazine went to press with a missing semi-colon; among thousands of words in dozens of pages Joyce located it and it was there, looking as if I had got it right in the finished printed article.
Joyce was also an extraordinarily accomplished photographer. I have worked with many professional photographers but have never seen any to equal Joyce in the matter of lighting. Miniatures are difficult to photograph well because of the size and the detail. At Miniatura in the press rooms I watched Joyce patiently spending time composing and lighting shots for longer than anyone else would have bothered to get it exactly right. Joyce could make even the most wooden doll look alive; she could make an average miniature look great and a good miniature look so real you couldn’t tell it from a full size item.
Having made everyone else: writers, artists and publishers look good Joyce then melted into the background. Those who took such pleasure in working with her knew little of her home life, though she did occasionally speak of her enjoyment of sailing. She supported many causes including Amberley Museum and raised much money for charity, which she had been delighted to do on the Saturday before she became ill. Latterly Joyce has been looking after Dolls House World on line and whilst there are still issues to be published that she has edited, her true legacy is that if you speak to any of the thousands of readers, writers and artists who knew her you will only ever hear admiration of the work of this most selfless person. The world of miniatures has lost a very good friend.
Joyce suffered a stroke on June 13th and died on June 20th. She is survived by her husband, Dave.