Best known as the creator of the highly acclaimed HBO series The Wire, David Simon is a Baltimore-based author, journalist and writer-producer of television, specializing in criminal justice and urban issues. In its 5 seasons, The Wire chronicled with graphic reality and memorable characters Baltimore's streets, politics, police department, schools, and newspaper.

Born in Washington, he came to Baltimore after graduating from the University of Maryland, to work as a police reporter at the Baltimore Sun. In 1988 he took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.

Published in 1991, the Edgar-award winning account of a year inside the Baltimore Police Department Homicide Unit became the basis for NBC's Homicide: Life On The Street, which was broadcast from 1993 to 1999. Simon worked as a writer, and later as a producer on the award-winning drama and won a Humanitas Award and the WGA Award for best writing in an episodic drama.

In 1993, Simon took a second leave from the Baltimore Sun to research and write The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood. Published in 1997 and co-authored with Edward Burns, the true account of life in a West Baltimore community dominated by an open-air drug market was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times.

Simon then co-wrote and produced The Corner as a six-hour miniseries for HBO. That production, which aired in 2000, won an Emmy as the year's best miniseries. Simon won an Emmy for best writing in a movie or miniseries.

Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for publications as varied as the Washington Post, the New Republic and Details magazine.

NOTE: Bio is as it appeared in the Forum program from November 21, 2008.