Joe Fassler

Biography

Joe Fassler is an award-winning journalist and the author of two books. His speculative novel, The Sky Was Ours, was called a “stunning debut” by Publishers Weekly, and is longlisted for the 2025 Reading the West Book Awards. His collection, Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process, draws on his more than 175 author interviews for The Atlantic’s “By Heart” column. It has been translated into six languages. 

Fassler has covered food and environmental topics for outlets like The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Wired, The Guardian, Fast Company, and The Best American Food Writing. Recent work has been supported by a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a McGraw Business Journalism Fellowship from the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. 

In addition to mentoring students for Western’s low-residency MFA in creative writing, Fassler teaches at Johns Hopkins University’s MA in Writing program. A fiction graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he currently lives in Denver.