Joseph Nigg

Joseph (Joe) Nigg was born in Davenport, Iowa, and grew up throughout the Midwest. He holds a BA in English from Kent State University, an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver's Writing Program. His part-time jobs range from boilermaking and gandydancing to factory work and waiting on tables. While always writing on the side, he taught literature and writing at the high school and college levels prior to serving as a corporate editor for a worldwide network. A father and grandfather, he lives with his wife in Denver, Colorado, where he writes full-time up in their library in a hundred-year-old house.

Nigg's award-winning books have led to a variety of other opportunities for the author. His "Master of Mythology" interview with Joseph Campbell, a long-time influence, is included in Living in Words (Breitenbush Books, 1988). He also participated in the Ancient Mysteries "Dragon" segment on the Arts & Entertainment network and served as the show's historical consultant (1997; on Myths and Legends DVD, 2001). Excerpts of his books have appeared in Cricket magazine.

He was a guest speaker for the 2008 Dragons:Between Science and Fiction exhibit at Edmonton's Royal Alberta Museum, and his "Transformations of the Phoenix from the Church Fathers to the Bestiaries" was published in IKON 2-2009, a scholarly journal of the University of Rejika, in Croatia. Jeff VanderMeer's "How to Raise and Keep an Imagination: Joseph Nigg and the Power of Fantasy" appeared in the February 2009 issue of Realms of Fantasy and was reprinted in Jeff VanderMeer's Monstrous Creatures: Explorations of Fantasy through Essays, Articles and Reviews (Guide Dog Books, 2011).

In addition to the books featured on this site, Nigg's fiction has appeared in many publications, including The Bloomsbury Review, Epoch, Leviathan, Short Story International, and in his short story collection, Winegold (Wayland Press, 1985). He wrote the text for a coffee-table photograph book, The Great Balloon Festival: A Season of Hot Air Ballooning Across the United States and Canada (Free Flight Press, 1989). A personal recollection of his years as a student writer is printed in The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (Hyperion, 1999). His most recent personal essay is "From Stylus to Cyberspace," on the Colorado Authors' League website.

He is listed in several directories, including Contemporary Authors, International Authors and Writers Who's Who, and Who's Who in U.S. Writers.

Copyright © 2011 Joseph Nigg