Joel Samberg

When I was 12 years old, I wrote a screenplay called "Crooked Dreams" and sent it to MGM. The studio was unable to use it, but Roger Ahrens, the MGM executive who responded, told me to never stop writing. When I was 15, Miss Fronefeld sent a note home to my parents accusing me of plagiarizing a book report in her English class because she thought it was too well written for someone my age. That settled it. From that point on, I've never stopped. And I never will.

I began writing professionally at the age of 17 as a stringer for my hometown newspaper, and continued on-the-job training as a student journalist at Hofstra University. My first position after college was as an assistant editor on trade magazines. I then moved into marketing communications as an account executive, public relations manager and employee communications writer. As a journalist my work has appeared in Connecticut Magazine, Pittsburgh Magazine, New Jersey Monthly, Hartford Magazine, Dramatics Magazine, the New York Daily News and others. Several can be found on my website [JoeltheWriter.com].

I am the author of the novel "Blowin’ in the Wind," as well as four nonfiction books, including "Smack in the Middle: My Turbulent Time Treating Heroin Addicts at Odyssey House (co-authored with Gibbs Williams, Ph.D.), "Grandpa Had a Long One: Personal Notes on the Life, Career & Legacy of Benny Bell," about my comic musician grandfather, and "Some Kind of Lonely Clown: The Music, Memory & Melancholy Lives of Karen Carpenter," which followed a report on Ms. Carpenter that I wrote and narrated for NPR’s "All Things Considered."

I also have a literary blog called "Hey, You Never Know," [hey-you-never-know.blogspot.com] that includes several additional essays and articles.

Ever since I was six years old, nearly everything I saw, overheard, learned in school or simply wondered about I turned—in my head at first—into books and plays and movies. I suppose that was my motivation to devote my career to writing. I don’t know why. That’s just the way it was. Whether or not I’m good at it may be somewhat subjective, but that I want to do it and work very hard at it is unassailable.