JOE GANNON, writer, teacher, set dresser, editor and spoken word artist, was a freelance journalist (1986-90)  in Nicaragua during the Sandinista Revolution, writing for The Christian Science Monitor, The Toronto Globe and Mail, and the San Francisco Examiner, NBC radio, Business Week and others. He began his journalism career in New york City as an editor for Inter Press Service (IPS).  He spent three years in the army, graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and received his MFA at Pine Manor College.  After a stint teaching high school in Abu Dhabi he is now working on his second novel.

 

Born in Chicago, IL, he was raised in North Carolina and Massachusetts. (Making him the "original American honkey: 'Boston Irish in my left hand and Carolina cracker in my right'."

 

In his travels as a journalist he was once arrested by the Treasury Police in El Salvador for being "a suspected terrorist collaborator" after spending the night in a rebel held area in the capitol; and in Northern Ireland he was detained both by the British Special Branch and the Irish Repbulican Army for questioning.  All while going about his job as a reporter.