Journalist, journalism professor and author of three books, Paul Moses is serving as The Bard of the Fair.

A professor of journalism at Brooklyn College since 2001, he previously worked for 23 years in daily journalism, mostly at Newsday’s New York City edition. He served as the paper’s City Hall bureau chief, Brooklyn editor, city editor and religion writer. As a rewrite man, he wrote the paper’s lead stories on the World Trade Center attack and on a subway crash that killed five people, the latter winning a Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting.

His book, “The Saint and the Sultan: The Crusades, Islam and Francis of Assisi’s Mission of Peace” (Doubleday, 2009) won the 2010 Catholic Press Association award for Best History Book. With Robert F. Keeler, he also co-authored “Days of Intense Emotion: Praying with Pope John Paul II in the Holy Land” (Resurrection Press, 2001). His most recent book, “An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians,” was published by NYU Press last year.

He was also a reporter for The Associated Press, and has written for many other outlets, including Commonweal, America, National Catholic Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice, CNN.com, Time.com, and the New York Daily News.

He learned to write at Mary Queen of Heaven School, Flatlands, and Nazareth Regional H.S., East Flatbush, where he later served on the board of trustees. He has bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College and a master of fine arts in English from the University of Massachusetts.

He’s an active member of St. Columba parish in Marine Park.

Although he has no Irish blood to his knowledge, his wife Maureen’s ancestry is Irish, and their children Matthew and Caitlin are therefore half-Irish. His Italian ancestry on his mother’s side led him to explore the Irish-Italian relationship in his most recent book. He’s glad the Irish and Italians get along nowadays.