Joseph Michael Jahn (born August 4, 1943) is an American journalist, author and memoirist. He was born in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, Ohio, and raised in Sayville, New York. He moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in 1966 and was educated at

Dowling College Dowling College was a private college on Long Island, New York. It was established in 1968 and had its main campus located in Oakdale, New York on the site of William K. Vanderbilt's mansion Idle Hour. Dowling also included a campus in Shirle ...

Adelphi University Adelphi University is a private university in Garden City, New York, United States. Adelphi also has centers in Downtown Brooklyn, Hudson Valley, and Suffolk County in addition to a virtual, online campus for remote students. As of 2019, it had ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He spent the first decade of his career covering cultural issues, mainly by becoming, in 1968, the first full-time rock journalist of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' and the first full-time rock writer for any major daily newspaper.Gelb, Arthur. "City Room." New York: Putnam, 2003; p. 519 According to the Times metropolitan editor Arthur Gelb, he hired Jahn specifically to inaugurate the newspaper's coverage of rock music. One of his first assignments was to cover the

Woodstock Festival The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

. Jahn wrote more than 200 reviews of performances by rock bands and individual folk and blues artists for the ''New York Times'' between 1968 and 1971. He also wrote a column syndicated by North American Newspaper Alliance, 1967-1970, and ''The New York Times'', 1970-1973. Jahn wrote several works of nonfiction before the mid-1970s, when he switched to writing mystery/suspense fiction, eventually publishing about 50 novels and movie/TV adaptations, under his own name and several pen names. His first mystery novel, ''The Quark Maneuver'', published by Ballantine in 1977, won an

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards hon ...

in 1978. In 1982 and using the byline Michael Jahn he began the series "The Bill Donovan Mysteries" with ''Night Rituals''. Michael Jahn, ''Night Rituals.'' New York: Norton; 1982. By 2008 he had published 10 novels in the series, the last being ''Donovan and Son,'' published by Five Star (Gale Centage) in 2008. "The Bill Donovan Mysteries" were highly acclaimed, and in 2011 he began reformatting them for publication in ebook edition (Kindle). By the end of 2012, six of the 10 had been published in digital format. With the conclusion of the Donovan series he stopped writing fiction in order to concentrate on a memoir of the last century and a half of American history as reflected in the lives of his recent ancestors. They came from all over Western Europe and had adventures that included being part of the opening of Japan to Western civilization, the great sea battles of the Civil War, arctic exploration, the Roosevelts, the Lindberg baby trial, the Hindenburg Disaster, the American Communist Party, and brushes with Dutch Schultz, Harry Truman, and, in his words, "a passel of currently deceased rock stars." Jahn's original manuscripts and papers are in the Michael Jahn Collection at the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of

. The collection was established in 1984.

References

External links

Mike Jahn's blogFinding aid to the Mike Jahn papers at Columbia University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahn, Michael Adelphi University alumni Columbia University alumni American male writers People from Long Island 1943 births Living people Writers from Cincinnati Journalists from Cincinnati People from Sayville, New York