Joel Rose

I was born in Los Angeles, but raised in New York, where my father worked as a waiter, first at the Stage Deli and later at the Carnegie. I received a B.A. in Literature from Hobart College and MFA from Columbia University. After working as an assistant to the writer, Leonard Kanter, on the television show Kojak, my first daughter was born, and I moved back to the Lower East Side neighborhood where my mother was born and raised. It was during those years that I had the opportunity to work on Miami Vice with my dear, departed friend, the immensely talented poet and playwright, Miguel Pinero, and was inspired to write my first novel, Kill the Poor, which was published in 1988.

My newest novel is The Blackest Bird (2007).

Other books include Kill Kill Faster Faster (1998), the graphic novel La Pacifica (1995), written with film director Amos Poe, and the urban historical, New York Sawed in Half (2001).

I am presently at work on a new novel about Ned Buntline entitled Buffalo Bill and His Adventures in the East, and a graphic novel called Get Jiro! with Tony Bourdain.

For a few years in the middle 1990s after I sold La Pacifica, I worked at DC Comics, editing their line of mystery novels, including History of Violence and Road to Perdition.

Kill the Poor was made into a film, produced by John Malkovich's Mr. Mudd Productions, starring David Krumholtz (Numbers) and Paul Calderon (21 Grams), screenplay by Daniel Handler (Lemony Snickett), and directed by Alan Taylor (Homicide, Sopranos, Deadwood). Kill the Poor was one of the first films shown at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The award winning film made from Kill Kill Faster Faster, starring Gil Bellows (The Weatherman), Lisa Ray (Water), and Esai Morales (NYPD Blue), was directed by Gareth Roberts.

With Catherine Texier, I established and edited the literary magazine Between C&D.

I have four kids, two girls and two boys, a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, named Vince, and own two really great guitars. My family and I live in New York City and on the Jersey shore.