Joe Hagan is a contributing editor at New York and Vanity Fair magazines. His story on Cleveland singer-songwriter Bill Fox was anthologized in Read Hard: Five Years of Great Writing from the Believer. He lives in Tivoli, New York.

• July/August 2010: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free
  The Secret Diary of Nina Simone
• FULL TEXT
  July/August 2009: The Ballad of Benji Hughes
  From the land of Wachovia and shotgunned beers by the river comes a fresh voice in pop music that blends Randy Newman with Prince.
• June/July 2007: Transit Byzantium
  Why is Bill Fox—one of America’s greatest contemporary songwriters—working in self-imposed exile as a telemarketer in Cleveland?