short-story – Rock Star Writers Blog

Joe Dennis grew up on south side of Chicago in a Filipino household, where he was discriminated on because he was believed to be Mexican by his white neighbors.

“People thinking I’m Mexican, how do you deal with people yelling slurs at you without them even being applicable to you?” Dennis says while speaking about the prejudice.

Joe is now the department chair at Piedmont University where he teaches his students podcasting and necessary journalism strategies to have a successful career. One of the main reasons he continued pursuing his passion for writing and journalism is due to his former mentor Conrad Fink.

“He was a hardcore military veteran type of guy.” Joe recalls. “He believed in me, he believed in my writing like no other had. If this guy believes in me, than I really should believe in myself.”

When Joe felt doubt about his capability to be a good writer, he could always count on encouragement from Conrad. He still tries to live up to Conrad to this day.

Although he loves journalism, there is always critique that comes with the profession.

Dennis said that his most critiqued article was a column he wrote about the difficulty to hide the truth about the legitimacy of Santa. He received a lot of backlash that his son was too old to believe in Saint Nick, or that he shouldn’t be living in a fairy tale world.

“You never know what’s gonna click with people.” Joe said in response to the critics on what is supposed to be a comedic article.

Finding Joe in a crowd is as simple as finding the man wearing a fedora. This fashion statement originated from a work trip in New York city.

“I was with a friend, and I had kind of been looking for my thing, fashion wise, and this person goes at a fedora stand, ‘hey you would look great in a fedora,’ and I’m like right, they’re just trying to sell me something, and I tried it on, and my friend who was with me goes, you actually look good in a fedora, you could rock the fedora Joe and I’m like, well I trust you. So I went and I got the fedora, like this is Joe’s thing now.”

Joe Dennis now owns six fedoras, mainly tending to the hot Georgia weather, wearing fedoras with the style of a straw hat.

Although he isn’t an active writer Joe still makes a large impact teaching at Piedmont University.

“The day after the election, I had students in my office, I had an openly bisexual student, an illegal immigrant, and a self-identified feminist, a student dealing with anxiety and an African-American student, and they were all devastated, and they were waiting for me, like ‘Joe what are we going to do’ and they needed someone to talk to, someone to vent and make them feel like they’re not alone.”

By: Madison McKenzie

Who is Joe Dennis? A husband, a father, a Kesha fan man and fedora lover.

“I got my start in college when my Summer orientation leader said he needed a volleyball reporter and I had a crush on a girl who was on the team,” Joe said.

Joe got his start at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois as a volleyball reporter, with no background on the sport.That didn’t stop Joe from stepping up to the plate and hoping to talk to his crush.

After he had some time and practice, Joe eventually picked up journalism as a minor and you can tell his feeling toward it changed from “I don’t want to do it” to something he can say he enjoys. His long term professor and mentor at Grady College, Conrad Fink, whom he gives thank to.

“He really believed in me and my writing like no one ever has and he showed me how good I really am, and he said that I should really do this. He really believed in me,” Joe said.

His mentor gave him what he needed to hear in order to become the great writer he is today.

“When I was working in Monroe, on Tribune here in Georgia I interviewed this judge who was a local judge who needed a liver transplant, and so we continuously did story updates like every month,” Joe said “The way we started these updates was where he was on the waiting list for a liver transplant. So we did about four or five stories on him and just tracking how he declined each month and tying in to that the importance of organ donation in each story. And he died before he got the chance to get a liver transplant. I’ll never forget the day he died.”

This led him to become an organ donor. Joe believed that “there was no reason for this man to die.” He believes no one should have to wait to live life. Joe is a very caring person who is very in tune with his feelings.

Joe also picked up the new habit of cooking. Cooking dishes from his Filipino culture, he enjoys making a coconut dubbo, pancit and lumpia, which is Filipino egg rolls, and Filipino bbq. He recently asked his mom for new recipes from his culture.

“How much soy sauce do I need,” she says “Enough.” Joe responded “Well how much is enough?” His mom responded “Enough is enough.”

In addition to writing and cooking, he listens to Kesha in his spare time.

“She’s someone who I feel is very inspiring because of her history, she has really overcome a lot in her life and has persevered,” Joe said.

He gets pumped up by listening to the Kesha song “Blow” which, in his words, help him “dominate the day” and “get the party started.” He loves her lesser known songs as well, songs like “Raising Hell,” where he believes it’s a song about her standing up for her rights.

He mentions the song “Praying.”

“That song is just so emotional, so heartfelt. It’s a song where someone hurt her so deeply, she’s actually praying for that person so it just shows a lot of forgiveness.” Some things just resonate with Joe.