Joel Lewis is the author of My Shaolin (2016), North River Rundown (2013), Surrender When Leaving Coach (2012), Learning From New Jersey (2007), Vertical's Currency (1999) and House Rent Boogie (1992), winner of the second (and last) Ted Berrigan Memorial Award. He edited Bluestones and Salt Hay, an anthology of contemporary NJ poets, as well as editing Reality Prime, the selected poems of Walter Lowenfels and On The Level Everyday, the selected talks of Ted Berrigan. A social worker by day, he has taught creative writing at the Poetry Project, The Writer's Voice and Rutgers University. And, for better or worse, he initiated the ill-fated New Jersey Poet Laureate position that was such a headache for Amiri Baraka. With his wife, Rutgers University cinema professor Sandy Flitterman-Lewis, he resides in Hoboken.