Jon Margolis

Jon Margolis, proprietor, writer, and grand pooh-bah of Vermont Newsguy.com, is the author of three books and was the national political correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. He is also an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Vermont.

He lives in Barton, Vermont, where, when not writing or teaching, he putters in his garden, walks in the woods, and, in season, attempts with modest success to fool brook trout into thinking that the fluff at the end of his fly-line and leader is an actual insect.

Margolis has written articles for the New York Times Magazine, American Prospect, The New Republic, Mother Jones, High Country News, and 7 Days. Before joining the Tribune in 1973, Margolis had been the Albany Bureau Chief for Newsday. He was the first reporter on the scene of the Attica prison rebellion in 1971, and spent the entire first night inside the prisoner-held ‘D’ yard. Earlier, he had been a reporter for the Bergen Record in Hackensack, N.J., the Miami Herald and the Concord (N.H.) Monitor.

In addition to “The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964,” published by William Morrow in 1999 (paperback published by HarperCollins Perennial in 2000), he is the author of “How To Fool Fish With Feathers: An Incompleat Guide to Fly Fishing,” illustrated by Jeff MacNelly (Simon and Schuster, 1991) and “The Quotable Bob Dole–Witty, Wise and Otherwise, “(Avon Books, 1995). He also wrote two chapters of “Howard Dean: A citizens Guide to the Man Who Would be President “(Steerforth, 2003)

A native of New Jersey, Margolis graduated from Oberlin College in 1962. He served in the US Army. He is married to the former Sally Thompson and they have two grown children, a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law and a grand-daughter.