Joan Cambridge

[2] Beginning in the 1960s, Cambridge worked as a journalist,[3] including as a reporter and as women's page editor of the Guiana Graphic, which later became the Guyana Chronicle.

[5][6] Cambridge met her husband, the American actor, writer, and civil rights activist Julian Mayfield, when they were both working at the Guyanese Ministry of Information and Culture.

[14] During her years living in the United States, Cambridge became involved in the Black literary scene, counting Maya Angelou among her social circle.

[15] In 2000, she participated in the Summer Institute fellows conference and D.C. Area Writing Project in Washington, D.C.,[16] and she has been involved with the Guyana Cultural Association of New York, including performing a reading at their symposium at Columbia University in 2004.

[17] Cambridge continues to be involved in activism in her country and internationally, including advocating in defense of her native language Guyanese Creole[18][19] and offering 100 acres of her land to resettle Haitians displaced by the 2010 earthquake.