Award-winning biographer Brian Jay Jones spent nearly two decades as a writer, speechwriter, and public policy analyst, serving elected officials at three levels of government, including nearly ten years in the United States Senate. Despite this background, he writes nonfiction.
Brian’s first book, Washington Irving: An American Original, has been hailed as the definitive biography of American literature’s first popular author and pop culture icon. The Associated Press praised the book as “authoritative,” the Washington Post’s Michael Dirda called it, “engaging, clearly written, and well researched,” while the New York Times summed it up simply as “charming.”
In 2010, Brian was awarded the St. Nicholas Society of New York’s Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, joining David McCullough, Ron Chernow, Christopher Buckley, and William Zinsser on the list of medal recipients.
Born in the Midwest and raised in the Southwest, Brian has a degree in English literature from the University of New Mexico, which he immediately parlayed into a brief career as a manager of a comic book store before getting into politics and writing. Brian now lives with his wife and daughter in a small town in central Maryland where it has only recently become legal to buy or sell alcohol. When he’s not writing, he loves listening to classic jazz and blues, admires the films of Charlie Chaplin, reads anything having to do with Batman or the Beatles, and generally succeeds in trying the patience of his wife.
He is currently at work on the first biography of Jim Henson.
You can e-mail him at brian (AT) brianjayjones (DOT) com. Go ahead. He’ll write back.
Enjoyed what you had to say about Alvin Fernald books by Clifford B. Hicks. I loved the Alvin series and claimed they were “the best books ever!” to all my friends way back then. Superweasel was a big step out for Alvin, I thought. When I was twelve, I wrote a letter to Mr. Hicks. We’ve been friends ever since. Hundreds of correspondences have happened. Many trips to his home in North Carolina. In his Peter Potts series, which came out when I was in college, he even used my name as a character’s name. As of the last two months, Cliff Hicks has actually written a new Alvin Fernald book, “The Boy Who Saved the Gettysburg Address”. Awesome for being 89 years old! Anyway, I enjoyed your comments on Alvin. Those books were an important part of my childhood and I hold a certain reverence of them even today. Best wishes…Mike
Dude, Alvin Fernald rocked! I devoured those books when I was a kid. I also sent a letter to Clifford B. Hicks and — get this — called him on the phone! Not only did he take my call, but he was very nice and encouraged me to become a writer. (Not sure if he would approve of my website, but at least I took his advice lol)
Anyway, peace out.
Steve Slatten
The Partisan Snipe