Joel Rose

I grew up in New York, but I was born in L.A. My father worked as a waiter at both the Stage and Carnegie delis, and I worked as a waiter and busboy in many, many restaurants around the city. I received a B.A. in Literature from Hobart College and an MFA from Columbia. After my father told me: "I didn't work this hard, you didn't work this hard, for you to be a waiter," I stumbled into a job as assistant to the writer, Leonard Kanter, on the television show Kojak. A few years later after doing my share, writing MacMillan and Wife, Cat and Mouse, and James at 15, my first daughter was born, and I moved back to the Lower East Side neighborhood where my mother was born. It was during those years that I had the opportunity to work on Miami Vice with my dear, departed friend, the brilliant Nuyorican poet and playwright, Miguel Pinero, and was inspired to write my first novel, Kill the Poor (1988).

My last novel was The Blackest Bird (2007).

Other books include Kill Kill Faster Faster (1998), the graphic novel La Pacifica (1995), written with No Wave film director Amos Poe, and the urban historical, New York Sawed in Half (2001).

My new novel (still working on it) is Buffalo Bill and His Adventures in the East. Tony Bourdain and I have written a graphic novel for DC Comics/​Vertigo called Get Jiro!! Art work has been drawn by the immensely talented Langdon Foss. Get Jiro!! is scheduled for release in July. Can't wait!

For a few years, way back when, 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 (aka Lemony Snickett), and directed by Alan Taylor (Homicide, Sopranos, Deadwood, Game of Thrones). 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 and when possible (when school's out for the boys) Nosara, Costa Rica.