| Occupation: | Author and Journalist |
| Citizenship: | United States |
| Alma Mater: | Haverford College |
| Notableworks: | The Humor Code |
| Awards: | James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, Best American Sports Writing anthology, Casey Medals for Meritorious Journalism, Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, the Magazine Awards of Western Publishing and the National Awards for Education Reporting |
Joel Warner is an American author and journalist. He is the managing editor of The Lever investigative news outlet, and formerly worked as a staff writer for International Business Times and Westword.[1] [2] [3] He has also written for Esquire, Wired, Men's Health, Men's Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Boston Globe, Slate, Grantland, and other publications.[4] He is co-author of The Humor Code: A Global Search For What Makes Things Funny, and the forthcoming The Curse of the Marquis: A Notorious Scoundrel, A Mythical Manuscript, And The Biggest Scandal In Literary History.
In 2010, Warner met Peter McGraw, a professor at the University of Colorado. Warner was fascinated by McGraw's research and unified theory of humor, the Benign Violation Theory.[5] Starting in 2011, the two created "The Humor Code Project," a two-year, 91,000-mile global search for what makes things funny. Their travels took them to Tanzania, Scandinavia, Japan, Israel, Peru, and several other destinations in North America. McGraw and Warner authored The Humor Code, a book about their travels and the experiments they conducted along the way.[6] [7] The two maintained multiple blogs about their adventures on Wired, Huffington Post, and Psychology Today.[8] [9] [10]
As a staff writer for International Business Times, Warner received a Society of American Business Editors and Writers' Best in Business award for his article "Marijuana Inc" (published December 1, 2015).[11]
As a staff writer for Westword, Warner received several awards for his feature writing:[12]
"Black and Blue" (published January 20, 2011)
"Martial Law" (published February 4, 2010')
"The Boy Who Wouldn't Tell" (published April 22, 2010)
"Lax and the City" (published May 27, 2010)
"Trial by Fire" (published July 22, 2010)
"Taken for a Ride" (published December 2, 2010)
"Growth Industry" (published February 5, 2009)
"Cash Crop" (published September 10, 2009)
"The Good Soldier" (published March 20, 2008)
"Father of Invention" (published July 10, 2008)2009 AAN AltWeekly Award
"You Do the Meth" (published June 28, 2007)
"Mr. Big" (published November 3, 2005)