Hey. Kia ora. G’day. Talofa. Welcome to JeffFleischer.com.
For those who don’t know me, I’m an author, editor, and journalist based in Chicago.
I’m the author of eight books, each of which you can learn more about on this site: “Civic Minded: What Everyone Should Know about the US Government” (Zest Books/Lerner, 2024), “Votes of Confidence: 3rd Edition” (Zest Books/Lerner, 2024), “Animal Husbandry (and Other Fictions)” (Running Wild, 2024), “A Hot Mess: How the Climate Crisis is Changing Our World” (Zest Books/Lerner, 2021), “Votes of Confidence: 2nd Edition” (Zest Books/Lerner, 2020), “Votes of Confidence: A Young Person’s Guide to American Elections” (Zest Books/HMH, 2016), “Rockin’ the Boat: 50 Iconic Revolutionaries from Joan of Arc to Malcolm X” (Zest Books/HMH, 2015), and “The Latest Craze: A Short History of Mass Hysterias” (Fall River Press, 2011).
I’ve also published fiction stories in more than seventy publications including The Chicago Tribune’s Printers Row Journal, Shenandoah, The Saturday Evening Post, and So It Goes by the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. Stories and/or publication details are included on this site’s blog as they come out.
My journalism work has appeared in dozens of publications including Mother Jones, the Sydney Morning Herald, Chicago Magazine and Mental_Floss. Internationally, my work’s appeared in publications including the Toronto Star, Sudan Tribune, Southland (New Zealand) Times and Austria’s Profil. Along with my home base of Chicago, I’ve lived and worked in Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu, San Francisco, and Bloomington, Indiana.
While most of my recent reporting is in the politics/current affairs category, I also have years of experience covering sports, entertainment, business, and travel. I’ve interviewed people ranging from a former US president and the head of United Nations peacekeeping in Rwanda to a Pulitzer-winning graphic novelist and a member of Monty Python. I’ve learned to throw a googly from one of Australia’s top cricket bowlers, spent a month reporting on a remote Pacific atoll, guest lectured to law students about my research and seen my work included in various university syllabi and textbooks around the world. I have a bachelor’s in journalism and history from Indiana University and a master’s in magazine journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
So that’s a short overview of who this site is about. (For the record, I am not the poet, youth advocate, or Oregon birdwatcher who share my name – and definitely not the bowhunter.) You can also follow me on social media via the links on the right side of this page, and can find my books the same way.
Please enjoy the site, and contact me with questions.
Cheers,
Jeff Fleischer
