Joel Samberg

I began in journalism at age 17 as a stringer for my hometown newspaper on Long Island, then continued training in college as an arts reviewer. My first position after college was as an assistant editor on a trade magazine. I then moved into marketing communications for several firms as an account executive, marketing communications manager, and employee communications writer.

As a journalist my work has appeared in dozens of magazines, including Pittsburgh Magazine, Hartford Magazine, New Jersey Monthly, Moment Magazine and others. I have also had a number of op-eds published in the New York Daily News, the Hartford Courant and The New Haven Register, and I also write the monthly “Off Ramp” humor column in Connecticut Magazine.

I am the author of eight published books, including two novels, "Blowin’ in the Wind" and "Almost Like Praying," and a nonfiction book on the late popular singer Karen Carpenter, called "Some Kind of Lonely Clown." That book followed a report on the 30th anniversary of Ms. Carpenter’s death that I wrote and narrated for NPR’s "All Things Considered." I also produced CD compilations of the comedy music created by my late grandfather Benny Bell, about whom I also wrote a book called "Grandpa Had a Long One." A book of short stories, "Weinerface," was published in the spring of 2023.

Two of my plays have been brought to life on stage: "Six Tens from a Fifty," a series of short comedies, was performed by the Love Creek Theater Company in New York City, and "The Ballad of Bobby Blue," debuted at a one-act play festival in Connecticut. I also recently purchased the theatrical rights to Bernard Malamud's 1957 novel and wrote a new play called "The Assistant." My screenplay, "Menagerie," about a small community theater in Brooklyn putting on Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie," received a cease-and-desist order from a Manhattan law firm forbidding me from trying to have it produced. Don't get me started about that.

My wife and I live in Connecticut. We have three grown children, five grandchildren, and three cats, two of whom are Maine Coons expected to get as big as my first car, a 1973 Chevy Impala.