Joel York

Joel began his career as a storyteller at the age of four, when his imaginative yarns in preschool had teachers scratching their heads and calling his mother to untangle fact from fiction. By seventeen, his penchant for writing earned him numerous awards and scholarships, all of which paved his way to higher education and set him up for success. But it was advice from his high school AP English professor that planted the seed in the path that grew before him: "If you want to write great things, you gotta do great things. Go out and live a little."

In the years since, Joel has chased his passions, working around the world in pursuit of "great" material. This honors-educated UCSD graduate from Carlsbad, California has lived abroad and traveled extensively across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the West Indies, the United Kingdom and Europe. Along the way, he worked as a Fortune 500 manager, a chef, a hotelier, a sailor, a bartender and an event producer. He even spent a year at sea on one of the most prestigious long-range sportfishing yachts in the world, the Royal Polaris, during which time he added, "catching a 200-pound yellowfin tuna" to his life resume.

After nearly ten years of living the wanderlust lifestyle, Joel returned to California, deciding it was time to write. A chance encounter introduced him to a live-music photographer who was looking for a writer to cover an event. For a couple of beers and an evening with a Sex Pistols cover band, Joel's career as a freelance journalist began. Having amassed over 400 bylines and numerous cover stories for print and digital media formats, he decided to embrace a new endeavor - writing "Chasing Paradise", his debut novel.

Always living in the moment and seeking new adventures, Joel relies on his life experiences to bring rich texture to the characters and themes that permeate his writing. He is currently working on a second novel.