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Charles M. Blow has been a New York Times Op-Ed columnist since 2008. His column appears on Monday and Thursday.

Mr. Blow joined The New York Times in 1994 as a graphics editor and quickly became the paper’s graphics director, a position he held for nine years. In that role, he led The Times to a best of show award from the Society for News Design for The Times’s information graphics coverage of 9/11, the first time the award had been given for graphics coverage. He also led the paper to its first two best of show awards from the Malofiej Infographics World Summit for work that included coverage of the Iraq war. Mr. Blow became the paper’s design director for news before leaving in 2006 to become the art director of National Geographic magazine. Before joining The Times, Mr. Blow had been a graphic artist at The Detroit News.

Mr. Blow is the author of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, released in September 2014. He graduated magna cum laude from Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he received a B.A. in mass communications. He lives in Brooklyn and has three children.