Glad you asked. I’m Joel, and I’ve been a professional editor and writer for more than two and a half decades now. Today, I’m the chief product officer of Full Focus. I head up the team producing our podcasts, Double Win Coaching program, courses, and the wonderful Full Focus Planner. I also co-host the Focus on This podcast—which is (since you’re curious) the most productive podcast on the internet. I’ve been at Full Focus for more than a decade now; before that, I served as vice president of editorial and acquisitions for Thomas Nelson Publishers, an imprint of HarperCollins.
This site is my personal website to collect various and sundry projects—primary among which is Miller’s Book Review , a twice-weekly newsletter in which I explore and celebrate all things literary.
I’ve written a few books of my own, most recently The Idea Machine: How Books Built Our World and Shape Our Future. I’ve also written The Revolutionary Paul Revere, a biography of you-know-who; Lifted by Angels, a look at angels through ancient art and literature; and Bad Trip, a conservative case for drug legalization. “Strictly whatever,” as Harry Manx would say. My work has been described as “powerful” (Washington Times), “lively” (World), and “well-researched and bitingly written” (Publishers Weekly).
I’ve written for Reason, Big Think, The Washington Post, American Spectator, National Review Online, and RealClearReligion. Previously, I blogged about religion for both Patheos and Ancient Faith; I also co-hosted a nichy podcast on the Apocrypha for Ancient Faith called Bad Books of the Bible. Reason adapted portions of my book Size Matters for a cover story and also featured an excerpt of The Idea Machine: “How Printing Presses Ignited the First Information Revolution.”
Kurt Vonnegut is great, but the guy was wrong about semicolons.