Famous American Editors

Katie Pavlich is an American author, podcaster, blogger, and conservative commentator. A Fox News contributor, Pavlich has been an alternate co-host for shows like The Five and has appeared on local and national radio shows on channels, such as CNN, CNBC, and Fox News. In 2014, she was named Woman of the Year by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute.

L. Frank Baum was an author remembered for writing children's books including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which inspired the 1902 Broadway musical and the 1939 live-action film of the same name. His works anticipated the invention of gadgets like TV that would be invented later. In 2013, Baum was made an inductee of the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.

Lou Dobbs is an American author, political commentator, and former TV host. He is best known for hosting the popular political and financial talk program Lou Dobbs Tonight. For his immense contribution to television journalism, Dobbs has won major awards including an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He has also won the George Foster Peabody Award and Eugene Katz Award.

H. L. Mencken was an American journalist, cultural critic, essayist, satirist, and scholar of American English. His reporting on the Scopes Trial earned him national recognition. The trial came to be known as the Scopes Monkey Trial as Mencken had nicknamed it Monkey Trial in accordance with his satirical reporting of the trial.

Dan Savage is an American author, journalist, media pundit, and LGBT community activist. He is credited with founding the It Gets Better Project which aims at preventing suicide amongst LGBT youth. In 2013, he was honored by the American Humanist Association with the prestigious Humanist of the Year award.  

Ben Bradlee was one of the most important journalists in the United States of America in the post-World War II era. From 1965 to 1991, Bradlee was associated with The Washington Post, serving as managing editor and then as executive editor. In 1988, Ben Bradlee was honored by the American Academy of Achievement with the prestigious Golden Plate Award.

Roxane Gay is an American writer, editor, professor, and social commentator. She is credited with founding an Illinois-based small press called Tiny Hardcore Press as well as the now-defunct Gay Magazine, which was founded in association with Medium. Roxane Gay is the recipient of a couple of Lambda Literary Awards and an Eisner Award for Best Limited Series.

Dave Eggers is an American writer, publisher, and editor. He is credited with founding a non-profit publishing house named McSweeney's Publishing and a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization called ScholarMatch. Eggers is also credited with co-founding other non-profit organizations like 826 Valencia and Voice of Witness. His novels A Hologram for the King and The Circle have been adapted into movies.

Tavi Gevinson is an American writer, actress, and magazine editor. Gevinson discusses topics such as feminism and pop culture through her works. The now-defunct online magazine Rookie, which focused on the problems faced by teenage girls, was founded by Tavi Gevinson who also served as its editor-in-chief. Gevinson has also appeared in popular TV series like Gossip Girl.

Jared Taylor is a white supremacist who is credited with founding an online magazine named American Renaissance for which he serves as the editor. He also serves as the president of New Century Foundation, the magazine's parent organization, through which he has published many of his books. Over the years Jared Taylor has been accused of propagating racist ideologies.

Lee Strobel is a Christian author and TV host. The recipient of four ECPA Christian Book Awards, Strobel propagates and supports Christian apologetics through his works. One of his books inspired the 2017 Christian drama film The Case for Christ in which Lee Strobel was portrayed by American actor Mike Vogel.

Anna Roosevelt Halsted was an American writer and newspaper editor. The daughter of Eleanor Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Anna played an important role during World War II, serving as her father's key advisor. After her marriage, Anna moved into the White House and served as First Lady of the USA as per her parents' request.

Alison Tyler is the pen name of an American writer, editor, and publisher. The publisher of erotica, Tyler is credited with writing over 20 explicit novels. She has also edited over 60 erotic anthologies and is credited with founding her own publishing company called Pretty Things Press. Her work, which focuses on erotic themes, has been translated into many languages.

iO Tillett Wright is an American photographer, author, activist, TV and podcast host. He is credited with founding the now-defunct international street art magazine Overspray for which he served as the editor-in-chief until 2009. His podcast The Ballad Of Billy Balls was counted among the best of 2019 and was considered for television development.

Annie Sprinkle is an American sexologist who supports sex work and healthcare. Sprinkle, who identifies herself as ecosexual, works as a feminist stripper, sex educator, pornographic actress, and sex-positive feminist. She is credited with popularizing lesbian pornography and the post-porn movement.

Once an inspiring journalist, Walter Isaacson now teaches history at the Tulane University. Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he has been the chair of CNN, the CEO of Aspen Institute, and an editor at Time. He has also penned biographies of personalities such as Steve Jobs and Leonardo da Vinci.

Carl Sandburg had begun working since age 11 and been employed in various odd jobs, such as a truck driver, a harvester, and a brickyard hand, before being part of the Illinois Infantry. The two-time Pulitzer-winning poet and biographer late also won a Grammy for his recording of Lincoln Portrait.

A prominent member of The Harvard Lampoon during his college years, humor writer Henry Nichols Beard decided to become writer after reading Catch-22,  a satirical war novel by Joseph Heller. Eventually he cofounded The National Lampoon; but shortly sold his stake for US$2.8 million and began writing books on humor, five of which reached New York Times Best Seller List.

John Avlon is an American political commentator and journalist. Widely regarded as one of the most influential personalities in news media, John Avlon served as the managing director and editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast for five years. John Avlon’s reputation earned him the responsibility of being the chief speechwriter for American politician and erstwhile New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

Rob Liefeld is a comic book creator best known for co-creating characters like Deadpool and Cable. In the 1990s, he achieved popularity for his work on Marvel Comics' X-Force and The New Mutants. Rob Liefeld is credited with co-creating Image Comics which went on to become the third-largest comic book publisher.

Bret Stephens is an American conservative journalist, columnist, and editor. Over the years he has worked for popular publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He has also served as the editor-in-chief for The Jerusalem Post. Bret Stephens has won several prestigious awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary and the Reason Foundation's Bastiat Prize.

Willow Bay is an American author, editor, television journalist, and former model. She has worked with popular TV networks like NBC, CNN, and ABC. She has also contributed to major sites like Huffington Post, where she served as a senior editor. She interviewed Bill Clinton and Warren Buffett as part of the site's Newsmaker series in collaboration with Yahoo! News.

For many years a key member of the Beat Generation, Lucien Carr is probably better remembered for murdering a man who had been stalking him since his adolescence. Sentenced to one to twenty years in prison, he came out after two years and started his career first as a copy boy and eventually became an editor of the United Press International.

Currently serving as the Executive Chair, Center for Investigative Reporting, Phil Bronstein is perhaps best known for his work as a war correspondent in the revolution-era Philippines and El Salvador, holding important positions in numerous organizations throughout his career.  On personal level, he is equally known for his marriage to his first wife, actress Sharon Stone.

With Master’s degree in French literature, fashion designer André Leon Talley’s initial aspiration was to become a teacher. Instead he was drawn to fashion and beginning his career as unpaid apprentice for Diana Vreeland, he went to become fashion news director for Vogue magazine and then its creative director. Also an author, he has written three books, including two memoirs.

Charles Van Doren was an American editor and writer. Van Doren played a major role in exposing the quiz show scandal of the 1950s when he confirmed that the producers of the quiz show Twenty-One had given him the correct answers. The quiz show scandal and Charles Van Doren's participation in it inspired the 1994 detective docudrama Quiz Show.

Diana Vreeland was a French-American editor and columnist who worked for popular fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. From 1963 to 1971, she served as the editor-in-chief of Vogue. In 1964, she was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Diana Vreeland’s life and career inspired the 2011 documentary Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel.

Art Spiegelman is an American cartoonist, comics advocate, and editor. His graphic novel Maus earned a special Pulitzer Prize for popularizing the comics medium among scholars. Over the years Spiegelman has helped promote a better understanding of comics. In 2005, he was named in Time's Top 100 Most Influential People list. He has also won many awards like Inkpot Award.

Noah Webster was an American textbook pioneer, lexicographer, political writer, English-language spelling reformer, author, and editor. Dubbed the Father of American Scholarship and Education, Webster's books have been credited with teaching the art of spelling and reading to five generations of American children. Thanks to his work as a spelling reformer, his name became synonymous with dictionary in the US.

Jeff Vandermeer is an American author, literary critic, and editor. Dubbed the King of Weird Fiction by The New Yorker, VanderMeer's works are renowned for eluding genre classifications as he often incorporates elements of postmodernism, New Weird, eco-fiction, and post-apocalyptic fiction into his writing. He has won many prestigious awards like World Fantasy Awards, Locus Award, and Nebula Award.

Bari Weiss is an American editor and opinion writer. Weiss has worked for publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. In 2019, she was honored with the prestigious National Jewish Book Award for her book How to Fight Anti-Semitism. Weiss is also the recipient of the Bastiat Prize, a journalism award presented by the Reason Foundation.

Dwayne Glenn McDuffie was an American writer best remembered for writing and producing popular animated series like Ben 10, Justice League Unlimited, and Static Shock. He is credited with co-founding Milestone Media, which is renowned for creating Milestone Comics. Over the course of his illustrious career, Dwayne Glenn McDuffie won many prestigious awards like the Humanitas Prize and Inkpot Award.

Victoria Woodhull was an American politician, suffragist, and writer who played an important role in the women's suffrage movement. She is credited with founding Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, America's first newspaper to be founded by a woman. Her life and career inspired the Broadway musical Onward Victoria. In 2001, she was posthumously inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.

Becky Quick is an American TV news presenter best known for co-anchoring CNBC's financial news shows On the Money and Squawk Box. Prior to working for CNBC, Quick worked for The Wall Street Journal where she played an important role in launching the publication's website in 1996. As part of her job, Quick has interviewed influential personalities including Bill Gates.

Ben Domenech is an American writer, television commentator, blogger, and editor. He is credited with co-founding an American conservative online magazine called The Federalist as well as the conservative political blog RedState. A controversial figure, Domenech has been accused of plagiarism among other charges, such as labor law violation.

Mark Hyman is an American physician and writer. He is credited with founding The UltraWellness Center where he also serves as the medical director. Hyman has contributed as a columnist for The Huffington Post and has co-authored a New York Times best-selling book titled The Daniel Plan. Since 2004, he has been serving as Bill and Hillary Clinton's medical adviser.

Charlaine Harris is an American author best known for writing the popular book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries. Apart from being translated into several languages, the series was also adapted into a successful HBO TV series titled True Blood. The success of True Blood prompted NBC to adapt Harris' Midnight, Texas Trilogy into a TV series of the same name.

Daniel Mallory Ortberg is an American author, podcast host, and editor. He is credited with co-founding a website called The Toast for which he also serves as writer and co-editor. In 2015, he was named in the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work in the media.

Jann Wenner is an American magazine mogul best known as the co-founder and publisher of Rolling Stone magazine. He is also credited with co-founding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and other popular publications like Outside. During the 1970s and 1980s, Wenner played a key role in popularizing several writers like Greil Marcus, Hunter S. Thompson, and Cameron Crowe.

Wayne Allwine was an American sound effects editor, voice actor, and foley artist who worked for The Walt Disney Company. He became the third person to voice Mickey Mouse. By voicing the legendary character for 32 years, Allwine became the longest-tenured actor to voice Mickey Mouse. Allwine won several awards including the Disney Legend Award and Primetime Emmy Award.

Known for his science-fiction novels such as Dhalgren, Babel-17, and the Nèverÿon series, author Samuel R. Delany often touches upon themes of sex, race, and language. A descendant of civil rights activists, he dropped out of college to write. Though gay, he was once married to lesbian poet Marilyn Hacker.

Mark Halperin is an American journalist who has worked for major broadcast networks like ABC News and MSNBC. His career was affected when he was accused of workplace sexual harassment during his tenure at ABC News. He was subsequently fired by NBC News and Showtime Networks and is currently appearing on Newsmax TV as a contributor.