Ira Joe Fisher - Background

Background

Fisher spent his childhood in Cattaraugus County, New York, a rural area in upstate New York, south of Buffalo. He was born in Salamanca, got his first job at WGGO there and graduated from Little Valley Central High School in 1965. He attended college at the State University of New York at Fredonia but left before graduating for a four-year stint in the Air Force. He was stationed in Syracuse, New York and attended Syracuse University, majoring in drama and Russian; he later worked for the Air Force as a Russian translator. He has a Master of Fine Arts from New England College.

Fisher has been a college professor, author, columnist, poet, disc jockey, reporter, actor, and weatherman. He played himself in the 1985 TV movie California Girls, and starting in 1995, he played the role of Hucklebee in approximately 500 performances of the long-running off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks. He is the author of three works of poetry: a chapbook titled Remembering Rew, and two full-length collections, Some Holy Weight in the Village Air and Songs from an Earlier Century. He has extensively studied the life and works of Robert Frost, and has taught poetry at the University of Connecticut, New England College, Pace University, and Mercy College.

Fisher lives in Connecticut with wife, Shelly. They have four children: Joshua, Shelby, Ashley, and Dylan.