JOE AMATO WAS BORN IN SYRACUSE, NY,
in 1955, and raised in the metro area. He completed his undergraduate degrees in mathematics and mechanical engineering at Syracuse University, and his Master of Arts and doctoral degrees in English at University at Albany. A licensed professional engineer in New York State, he spent seven years in industry working in various project engineering capacities. Amato is the author of nine books: Samuel Taylor’s Last Night (novel, Dalkey Archive Press, forthcoming 2012); Big Man with a Shovel (novel, Steerage Press, 2011); Once an Engineer: A Song of the Salt City (memoir, SUNY Press, 2009); Pain Plus Thyme (poetry, Factory School, 2008); Industrial Poetics: Demo Tracks for a Mobile Culture (criticism, University of Iowa Press, 2006); Under Virga (poetry, Chax Press, 2006); Finger Exorcised (poetry, BlazeVOX [books], 2006); Bookend: Anatomies of a Virtual Self (criticism, SUNY Press, 1997); and Symptoms of a Finer Age (poetry, Viet Nam Generation, 1994). His prose, poetry and digital art have been published in Antennae, 88, Chain, Crayon, Jacket, Bombay Gin, Denver Quarterly, Mad Hatters’ Review, Mandorla, New American Writing, Postmodern Culture, MiPOesias, Notre Dame Review, Nineteenth Century Studies, The Iowa Review, The Iowa Review Web, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Voices in Italian Americana and electronic book review. Yellow Medicine, coauthored with Kass Fleisher, advanced to the semifinal round of the 2006 Nicholl Fellowship screenplay competition, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while placing in the second round of the 2006 Austin Film Festival. Another screenplay, Bear River (also with Fleisher), advanced to the semifinal round of the 2003 Chesterfield Writer’s Film Project fellowship competition, hosted by Paramount Pictures. Amato and Fleisher have recently adapted Big Man with a Shovel for the screen, and completed a play, Fat Jack’s. Amato currently teaches writing and literature at Illinois State University, and you can find him at ISU, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, at Wikipedia, and at Amazon.
