Ben Beard is a writer and librarian. He is the author of The South Never Plays Itself,
Muhammad Ali: The Greatest, and King Midas in Reverse,
co-author of This Day in Civil Rights History, and the author of a forthcoming biography of filmmaker Joseph H. Lewis, I Told You I Was No Good. In the 2000s, Beard reviewed movies and wrote features for INsite magazine, King Kudzu, and Filmmonthly.com, where he also worked as an editor. Beard, a native of Georgia who spent his formative years in the Florida Panhandle and Alabama, currently lives in Chicago with his wife and three children.