Joshua Ellis is a writer, futurist, coder, designer and musician. He has lived all over America and elsewhere and currently makes his home outside London.
He was a regular columnist for the Las Vegas CityLife alternative weekly newspaper from 2001 to 2008. He and co-author Matt O’Brien were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for their series of stories about homeless people living in the storm drains under Las Vegas, which O’Brien later expanded into the book Beneath The Neon. His writing has also appeared in print publications such as Coilhouse, Mondo 2000, Axcess, the Reno News & Review, Racket, 944 and online publications such as NSFWCORP, The Huffington Post, Mindjack, The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Worldchanging. He has authored two books: An American Vampire In Juarez: Getting My Teeth Pulled In Mexico’s Most Notorious Border Town and Everyone I Know Is Brokenhearted, a collection of work from 1998-2009. He has also contributed to a few books, including Worldchanging: A User’s Guide For The 21st Century and The Underground Guide To Las Vegas. He is considered an early pioneer in the field of crwodfunding and online micropatronage, due to his “Dark Miracle” project.
Joshua was also the co-founder and creative director of Mperia, one of the first online music stores to allow independent and unsigned artists to sell their own work directly to their fans. He was the original lead developer for NSFWCORP and has worked at numerous startups as a developer and CTO.
A fourth-generation musician, his first full-length album, Ghosts In A Burning City was released in December 2009 under the name Red State Soundsystem. He has also done mastering and remix work for Las Vegas indie rock outfit the Big Friendly Corporation and Chicago group Loyal Divide. Joshua has also done duty as a DJ at several venues in the Las Vegas area, including a year-long stint as the Friday night house DJ for the Art Bar.
In addition to writing, music ad coding, Joshua enjoys woodworking, graphic novels, middlebrow cinema, and attempting to cook Tex-Mex and Southern soul food in England. It’s an uphill battle, but he keeps at it.
He is probably bigger than you are.
I used to read your articles in CityLife a long time ago. Every time I picked one up I looked for your column. I think it’s sad that your column’s not there anymore but you must have had a good reason for leaving that I’m not aware of but as a fellow writer/big man/ las vegan, I still think you’re awesome dude. Keep up the great work.