Joe Queenan (author)

Joe Queenan (born November 3, 1950) is an American satirist and critic. He is the author of nine books, including Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon and If You’re Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble. His memoir Closing Time was a 2009 New York Times Notable Book.

Life and writings
A native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Queenan has written for such publications as Spy Magazine, TV Guide, Movieline, The Guardian, and The New York Times Book Review. He writes the "Moving Targets" column for the Wall Street Journal and regularly writes about movies for The Guardian.

Formerly an editor at Forbes, a staff writer at Barron’s, a television critic at People, and a columnist at TV Guide, GQ, Spy, Smart Money, Men’s Health, Barron’s Online and Movieline, his stories have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Esquire, the New Republic, Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Toronto Globe & Mail, Playboy, Rotarian, Golf Digest, Us, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, Town & Country, Allure, the New York Daily News and New York. His work has appeared overseas in the Independent, the Spectator, the Times of London, and Bon.

Queenan has been a guest on The Late Show with David Letterman, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Daily Show, Today, Good Morning, America, Charlie Rose and Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and appeared more than a dozen times on Politically Incorrect. He regularly writes and hosts radio features for the BBC, and for three years was host of the BBC's Postcard from Gotham.

In 2005, he won a Sports Emmy for his work on HBO's Inside the NFL. He wrote and appeared in three short films for the UK's Channel 4: Mickey Rourke for a Day, My Fair Hugh and So You Wanna Be a Gangster. He has also made a low-budget film about people with maddening addictions, entitled 12 Steps to Death. The experience was recounted in his book The Unkindest Cut.

His short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines, including the North American Review. His snap Internet novella Serb Heat was published online by Mr. Showbiz in 1997.

In 2019, Queenan co-authored with T.J. Elliott his first stage play, the problem comedy Alms, an Equity Showcase production directed by John Clay at TheaterLab in New York City. In 2020, Elliott and Queenan debuted their play Grudges on Zoom, directed by Dora Endre.

Their third collaboration, Genealogy, was part of the 2021 season at Broom Street Theater in Madison Wisconsin. Their fourth collaboration, The Oracle, played at Theater for the New City in May 2022.

A graduate of St. Joseph's College, he is married, with two children, Bridget, a neuroscientist, and Gordon, a lawyer. He lives in Tarrytown, New York.