Brian Jay Jones

Award-winning biographer Brian Jay Jones spent nearly two decades as a public policy analyst and speechwriter, before turning to biography full-time in 2007. He presently serves as vice president of Biographers International Organization. Brian's first book, Washington Irving: An American Original, was 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 called it, "engaging, clearly written, and well researched," while the New York Times summed it up simply as "charming." Which pretty much made his year. 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. He now lives in Maryland with his wife and daughter and a very excitable dog.