A Massachusetts native, Joe first learned about New York’s 1970s bankruptcy and fire epidemic while reporting a story for Doubletake magazine. After graduating from Harvard College in 2004, he worked as a reporter for the New York Sun and as a high school English teacher at the Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. In 2005 he moved to New York City and later to the Mott Haven section of the Bronx to research and write The Fires, which will be published by Riverhead Books in the spring of 2010. He is happy to report that his frequent walks to Yankee Stadium in a Red Sox jersey have yielded nothing worse than a few good-natured jeers.