James Kaplan

James Kaplan is an American novelist and journalist. He was born in New York City and grew up in rural Pennsylvania and suburban New Jersey. He attended New York University and graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in studio art. After graduation, he studied painting at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village. In the mid 1970s, he worked as a typist at The New Yorker Magazine, where he came under the tutelage of the writer and editor William Maxwell. In the late 70s and early 80s he published a number of short stories in The New Yorker. In the mid 80s he worked for several years as a screenwriter for Warner Brothers. Since the late 1980s, he has been a prolific writer of magazine profiles for Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and The New Yorker, among others.

He is the author of the following books:

* "Two Guys from Verona: A Novel of Suburbia" (1999)
* "The Airport: Terminal Nights and Runway Days at John F. Kennedy International" (1994)
* "Pearl's Progress" (1989)

He is the co-author of the following books:

* With Jerry Lewis, a memoir of Lewis's relationship with Dean Martin, "Dean & Me (A Love Story)" (2005)
* With John McEnroe, "You Cannot Be Serious" (2002)

He teaches magazine writing at New School University, and lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York with his wife and three sons.