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Biography
I
was named Joseph Emil Blum, sharing the same middle name of my father and
paternal grandfather. I like my middle name a lot. I've been called Giuseppi,
Yussel, Joseph, Blues Master, JoJo, and occasionally Jobo, but have always
gone by Joey: it keeps me young and reminds me not to take things seriously.
I've never been Mr. Blum. I was born in Ohio and raised in New York and my
first paid job was removing ice from a Cadillac at the age of seven.
Abandoning that promising career I then went on to the care of exotic
animals, life-guarding, home insulating, oyster growing, construction,
carpentry, fisheries biology, teacher of the living and the dying, and
lavender farming, just to name a few. At the age of eleven I first came to
Tumwater Washington and started spending summers there with relatives. I
fell in love with the Pacific Northwest that first summer and knew I would
live there when I could get away from New York. I did that for good at age
19. I now live in rural Oregon with my wife Nancy and daughter Ruby and I
spend winters alternately tormented and pleased by the thundering sounds of
amorous chorus frogs, and summers alternately tormented and pleased by
slowly pitched softballs. I am very proud to have juggled fish in the Bering
Sea while working aboard the world's largest fishing vessel, the Sulak: an
act I believe may have facilitated the end of the Cold War, and am
equally proud to have sung in a Soviet fisherman's dance band aboard the
same vessel: an act that, no doubt, prolonged it.
 About the illustrator
Bedtime Stories
illustrator, David Campbell is an oil painter, blacksmith, metalworker,
woodworker, wood carver,
and organ maker. He does all with equal facility, and except for the
modest presence of electricity his timeless
shop could be from another era. The ageless clang, crackle, and snap of
work done with of fire, wood, and
metal fill the air. David doesn't just use tools: he makes them and one
gets the impression that if he were
dropped into another century, even another millennium, he would not only
feel comfortable, but he would prosper.
I was honored that he contributed his enormous talents to my book.
He is a
remarkable man.
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