Michael was born in Oceanside, California, during the height of the Korean War. Raised in a Marine Corps family, he traveled extensively during his childhood, usually staying no longer than a year in each place (all in all, he attended nine different schools between the first and twelfth grades). In the early sixties he lived three years in Parris Island, South Carolina, a period of time he considers his halcyon days. In February of 1964 (the month the Beatles appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show), the family sailed to England aboard the S.S. United States, for a three and a half year tour. There Michael attended Bishop Wordsworth’s, an all-boy British public school in Salisbury, Wiltshire, ran cross-country, played rugby, and witnessed the cultural revolution taking place in America from a distance. He believes that his tumbleweed upbringing gave him a multi-faceted view of the world. “I always felt like an observer, standing on the outside of a fishbowl watching the world swim by. There are some pretty funny fish in the tank. There are some mean ones too. I learned to size up a tank pretty quick: who were the sharks, who were the guppies, bottom feeders, algae suckers and so on. I had to in order to survive.”

Fortunately for Michael he was able to record his observations in visual form. A talented artist and cartoonist he would sit in class drawing caricatures of teachers and fellow students, a talent that helped him make friends with classmates (if not with teachers). He drew numerous cartoon strips and single panel cartoons, emulating the strip and comic book styles of T.K. Ryan (Tumbleweeds), Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (Rat Fink), and Walt Kelly (Pogo). His political satires made their way into several school (and base) newspapers, giving him an identity as someone who could make people see themselves and the world as he saw them, make them laugh and think.

After a two and a half year stint in the Marines during the Vietnam War era (he was a Combat Illustrator), Michael attended Bethany Bible College in Santa Cruz, California, where he met and married a willowy brunette named Cathleen Correll. Graduating in 1977 with a B.A. in English Literature and Bible Theology, the young couple headed south to the Los Angeles area, where Michael soon landed a career in the cartoon animation industry. He worked for studios such as Hanna Barbera, Filmation, Warner Brothers, and Marvel Productions, where he honed his skills as an animator, storyboard artist, character designer and writer. He worked on the five-time Emmy award winning Muppet Babies, combining his skills as a writer and artist to create the visual interpretations of the song bridges in each show. It was while he was at Marvel Productions that he began producing and directing television series and specials: Blondie and Dagwood for CBS; the animated Fraggle Rock series for NBC; the My Little Pony feature film.

In 1987 Michael left Marvel to start his own company, The Stillwater Production Company, where he produced and directed scores of animated commercials for toy companies such as Milton Bradley, Hasbro, Kenner, McDonald’s and Playskool. He also produced and directed the animation segments for the award winning video series McGee and Me! as well as the animated Adventures in Odyssey; each series boasting several gold and platinum episodes.

It was during the early-nineties, while Michael was attending a CBA bookseller’s convention in Orlando, Florida, that he got the writing bug. Throughout his life he created universes, using his drawn characters to tell his stories. However, rubbing shoulders with authors at the convention, gave him the spark and impetus to put his universes into written form. Returning to Los Angeles, he took an idea that he once envisioned as an animated feature and began writing in earnest. The story—a boy against the world adventure—takes place in Fifth Century Britain, during the Anglo-Saxon invasion. The final manuscript was close to a thousand pages. Moody Press bought it, but told Michael that he’d have to cut the book in two, claiming that no one would buy a nine hundred-plus page novel from an unknown author. The Crimson Tapestry was published in 1995, and went into a second printing a month after its release. Christian Retailing Review wrote: “Joens’ style is unlike any other in the Christian fiction market…let the eyes become accustomed to the incredible vocabulary and innovative imagery, and it will be savored as rich, full-bodied writing that is treacherously laced with suspense…. The Crimson Tapestry could become a best seller and raise the standards by which Christian fiction is judged.” Its sequel, The Shadows of Eden followed six months later.

Michael followed these novels with a 1940s story that takes place in Montana, a father and son small town drama published in 1996 called The Dawn of Mercy. Triumph of the Soul (Baker/Revell) followed in 1999, a World War 2 novel that traces the lives of two fighter pilots, one an American, the other a German; their lives in combat, their loves, losses, and finally their ascendancy to faith. Triumph was a 2000 Christy Award Finalist.

Michael is currently writing a series of mystery novels for St. Martin’s Press, featuring Detectives Sandra Cameron of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and Tom Rigby of the Burbank PD. The first of the series, entitled An Animated Death in Burbank (early 2004 release), is an insider’s look at the dark underbelly of animation cartoon production, where there is a whole lot of intrigue, and very little laughter. Michael has just finished the second book in the series Blood Reins, a mystery centered in the high stakes, and sometimes deadly, arena of Quarter Horses.

Michael currently lives on a horse ranch just north of Santa Clarita with his wife Cathy and family, and three Jack Russell Terriers.