PETE HAMILL started his career at the New York Post in 1960. He has written for numerous national magazines, has worked as a syndicated columnist, and was most recently editor in chief of the New York Daily News. His books include eight novels, two collections of stories, and A Drinking Life, his bestselling memoir.Born in Brooklyn in 1935, of Irish immigrant parents, Pete Hamill served in the U.S. Navy, attended Mexico City College, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts. He started working at the New York Post in 1960, became a columnist in 1965, and for five hilarious weeks in 1993 served as Editor in Chief during the successful effort to save that newspaper from extinction. In the 1970s, Hamill also worked as a columnist for the Daily News for three years, did several hitches as a columnist at the Village Voice and has been a contributing editor at New York Times Magazine for twenty-five years. During those years, he covered the wars in Vietnam, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Nicaragua. He covered the great domestic disturbances of the 1960s, the anti-war movement of that era, along with too many more mundane stories of urban horror. He has written for most major magazines, including Playboy, Esquire (where he was a columnist for two years), the New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel/Holiday, Vanity Fair, and others. He is now a contributing editor at Esquire. Hamill also practices the craft of fiction and has published eight novels, the most recent being Snow in August. He has written a number of screenplays, most recently a film biography of the Mexican revolutionary leader, Pancho Villa, for Edward James Olmos. Pete Hamill has two daughters, Adriene and Deirdre. He is married to the Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki. They live in Manhattan. He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, PEN, the Society of Silurians and AFTRA. Among his books: Snow in August A Drinking Life: A Memoir Irrational Ravings The Times Square Gym The Gift Flesh and Blood The Guns of Heaven News Is A Verb: Journalism at the End of the Twentieth Century Why Sinatra Matters Piecework: Writings on Men & Women, Fools & Heroes, Lost Cities, Vanished Friends.