Joseph Hart is a writer, editor, and teacher. His features, reviews, profiles, and essays have appeared in publications including the Utne Reader, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Monthly, Mpls/St. Paul, and the Twin Cities news weekly City Pages, where he served as a staff writer. He is a member of the affiliate faculty at the University of Minnesota’s Department of English where he teaches writing and editing. He earned a BA in English (1992), and an MFA in creative writing (2000) from the University of Minnesota. Hart is a co-founder of the Tracy’s Tertulia, a literary salon. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife, writer and journalist Anne O’Connor, and their three children. Down & Out is his first book.