Charles M. Blow is the visual Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. His column appears in The Times on Saturday. He is also the author of the blog, "By the Numbers." His new memoir, Fire Shut Up In My Bones, is a stunning, honest memoir which is receiving much critical and popular attention.

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. He went on to become the paper's Design Director for News before leaving in 2006 to become the Art Director of National Geographic Magazine. Before coming to The Times, Blow had been a graphic artist at The Detroit News.

Blow often appears on MSNBC's Morning Joe and has appeared on Andrea Mitchell Reports, Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNN's American Morning, Headline News' The Joy Behar Show, Fox News' Fox and Friends, BBC, Al Jazeera, and numerous radio programs.

Blow graduated magna cum laude from Grambling State University in Louisiana, where he received a B.A. in mass communications. He lives in Brooklyn with his three children.