Joseph Hansen was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, on July 19, 1923. He attended Pasasdena City College. Hansen's fiction began to appear in the 60s. He published under the pseudonym James Colton because of the homosexual characters and themes of his work. He had published five novels and a collection of short stories when "Fadeout," the first of the Brandstetter mystery novels, was released. It is this series of 12 novels, which was published from 1970 to 1991 for which Hansen was most well known.
Hansen wrote almost 40 books, which included novels and a series of semi-autobiographical works. He also taught fiction workshops, published poems in The New Yorker and produced a local radio show in the 60s called "Homosexuality Today." In 1965 he founded the pioneering homosexual journal Tangents.
In 1974 Hansen was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 1992 he won the lifetime achievement award from the Private Eye Writers of America. Joseph Hansen died on November 24, 2004 at the age of 81 from heart failure.
030