After closing the door on my 23 years in magazines, during which time I edited many of the best-known writers in America, I spent the next dozen-plus years authoring or collaborating on six books. Now I’m combining those two aspects of my career into a service that can help editors, agents, and other writers in several important ways:

• Book doctoring—When you or your writer have a manuscript that needs anything from general touchup to time-intensive overall therapy

• Book editing—For swamped in-house editors, I can provide turn-key supervision of a project from concept to copy-edit-ready manuscript; or I can take an existing draft off your hands and work with the writer to produce the book you want to publish

• Concept positioning, proposal writing—Taking the rough idea and helping you shape it into a marketable commodity

• Collaborating and ghostwriting—By a proven author who’s written compellingly on a very wide range of subjects, from Virginia Clinton Kelley’s makeup routine, to the development of the interstate highway system, to Henri Matisse’s depiction of light

As a genre, narrative nonfiction is my abiding interest, and within that I include memoir, biography, history, politics, crime, current affairs, and business. More specifically, I’m personally interested in art and artists (painting, writing, music, movies, architecture, design), why humans behave the way we do, the lives we lead beneath the surface, how things are built (houses, buildings, bridges, stone walls, careers), and powerful personalities in any field.

If you're a writer in need of another pair of hands and eyes, a swamped in-house editor with a particularly time-intensive manuscript or author, or an agent whose client could use a little outside help, please contact me. I'd love to discuss your project with you.

I live in Paris, but don't let that scare you off. It's easy to get in touch with me through email, and the phone number above rings in my Paris apartment. I'm six hours ahead of East Coast time.

Jamie Raab, executive vice president and publisher, Grand Central Publishing: "James Morgan's love of writing shines through not only in his own fine work, but in the thoughtful, intuitive and generous editorial guidance he is able to provide to other writers. His editorial experience is varied and extensive and his eye and ear for language assure a job done wisely and well."

Nan Graham, editor-in-chief, Scribner (Simon & Schuster): “As an editor or script doctor James Morgan is gracious, astute, and pragmatic. His instinct for structure is superb, and his ear is impeccable, so at the sentence level, too, his contribution is invaluable.”

Lara Heimert, editorial director, Basic Books (Perseus Group): “Jim Morgan has an exquisite editorial sensibility, on the level of both structure and line--and everything in between. He works very effectively and professionally with authors, and always gets the job done on time. I couldn’t recommend him more highly.”

Rebecca Saletan, former vice president and publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Adult Trade: “I worked with Jim on Virginia Clinton Kelley’s memoir. He is hands down the most accomplished co-writer I have had the privilege to work with in more than 25 years in the business. Not only was he thorough, fast, and adaptable, but he displayed an uncanny ability to speak in the voice of his subject--and at the same time to get in the driver’s seat, steering it to a satisfying arc and depth without taking on any of the usual ‘as told to’ veneer.”

Chris Knutsen, senior editor, Vogue, and former book editor at Riverhead: “I had the pleasure of editing one of James Morgan’s books, an experience I will always treasure. Jim combines the natural curiosity and keen observational powers of a reporter with a novelist’s sense of language and how to pace a story. He brings a great deal of skill and sensitivity to the page, and an amiable, charitable attitude to the business of editing.”

William Whitworth, editor emeritus, The Atlantic Monthly: ”Jim Morgan is the wise, generous soul we'd all like to have available when we struggle through a manuscript. For every project from general touchup to complete renovation, he is the consummate professional: gentle coach and handholder, careful line editor, expert structural engineer, gifted rewrite artist.”

Lee Eisenberg, former editor, Esquire: "Jim Morgan has not only won the hearts and minds of many of the most distinguished writers of our time, he is widely respected by his peers: magazine and book editors who have long admired his terrific instincts and collaborative spirit."

Keith Bellows, editor, National Geographic Traveler: ”Jim is a brilliant editor who can work at all levels, from the broad gauge of 30,000 feet to the granular perspective of 500. He’s one of the best and last of the great editors, and I'd want him in my corner for any project that needs a sure editorial eye.”

Barry Golson, former executive editor, Playboy: “It was a privilege to work with Jim Morgan, and I can’t think of anyone so doubly skilled—both as a terrific editor and a superb writer. If I needed help shaping, editing, or even writing a manuscript, I would turn to Jim. I’d even pay him for it.”

Peter Ross Range, journalist: "Jim Morgan was one of the best editors I ever had. He saw the core of a story in the sometimes tangled mass of my writing and found the critical story line. At the same time, he always worked with a deft and light hand and, of course, the courtly manner of a born Southerner."

Roy Blount Jr., author: "Jim is an excellent, I'll even say transformative, editor. Who else could have turned my slim volume of erotic verse for the elderly, It's a Funny Old World, Ethel Old Gal, into the blockbuster success that it, of course, was."

Nan Graham, Scribner

Amanda Urban, ICM

Lara Heimert, Basic Books

• Edited nonfiction book on emergency room medicine for Nan Graham at Scribner, a project repped by Amanda Urban

• Edited nonfiction manuscript for an author prior to his agent's submitting book to publishers

• Edited a history of Iran and a biography of St. Francis of Assisi for Lara Heimert at Basic Books

• Edited a history of the 1960 Presidential election for Philip Turner at Union Square Press

• Worked with a novelist to adjust pacing and add tension to her narrative

• Worked with a #1-selling country music songwriter on her memoir

• Worked with a writer to restructure her family memoir, changing it from a repetitive thematic format to a strong narrative that allows the gripping story to drive the book

• Edited a business book on reputation management for Philip Turner at Union Square Press

• Doing ongoing work with a novelist on pacing, plotting, and characterization in his book-in-progress

• Worked with a novelist to assess and make recommendations about his book, including Character, Plot, Structure, Tension, Conflict, Tone, etc. Will do ongoing consulting with him on the second draft

• Worked with a writer to identify and suggest solutions to problems in draft three of his novel

• Presently--for the whole of 2009--working with a prominent international businessman on his memoirs, but am still available for reading and critiquing manuscripts

• Worked with a novelist to identify problems in one manuscript in order to help her avoid them in a new book

In my magazine career, which included nearly a decade as Articles Editor of Playboy, I worked with, among dozens of talented others, Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, Kurt Vonnegut, E. L. Doctorow, Walker Percy, Ray Bradbury, Erica Jong, Willie Morris, Calvin Trillin, Stephen King, William F. Buckley, Jr., Harry Crews, Roy Blount Jr., Philip Caputo, Molly Ivins, Jim Harrison, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Richard Rhodes, Barry Hannah, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, Irwin Shaw, Leon Uris, Bruce Jay Friedman, Thomas McGuane, Larry L. King, and Roger Kahn.

My articles and essays have appeared in such publications as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, American Heritage, The Washington Post Magazine, GQ, Men’s Journal, Playboy, Outside, Preservation, and National Geographic Traveler, to which I am a Contributing Editor. I've also written a screenplay,"Hot Springs," for Paramount Pictures, and am an emeritus member of the Writers Guild of America, west.

My books include:
• CHASING MATISSE: A YEAR IN FRANCE LIVING MY DREAM (Free Press, April 2005), a book about living the life that calls you (“From the pen of a less appealing writer, such a quest could easily have fallen into the worst sort of clichés. But Morgan avoids the traps, giving us a narrative of his discovery of France that is fresh, genuine and immediate.” --Judith Warner, Washington Post)

• THE DISTANCE TO THE MOON: A ROAD TRIP INTO THE AMERICAN DREAM (Riverhead, 1999), a New York Times Notable Book of the year (“The human case for the automobile has never been more persuasively presented than Morgan presents it in The Distance to the Moon….” --Bruce McCall, New York Times Book Review)

• IF THESE WALLS HAD EARS: THE BIOGRAPHY OF A HOUSE (Warner Books, 1996), a Quality Paperback Book Club selection (“…a rich, profound, fully realized study of how a house becomes a home.” --Kirkus starred review)

• LEADING WITH MY HEART, with Virginia Kelley, President Clinton’s mother (Simon & Schuster, 1994), best-seller, Times Notable Book, Literary Guild selection (“The memoir fairly throbs with its author’s vitality. Leading With My Heart, as its title suggests, is a celebration of the life of feeling….” --Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review, cover review)

• STRONGER IN THE BROKEN PLACES: NINE LESSONS FOR TURNING CRISIS INTO TRIUMPH, with former FEMA director James Lee Witt (Henry Holt’s Times Books, 2002), a book about crisis management, including a chapter on the Oklahoma City bombing ("Stronger in the Broken Places distills real wisdom . . . The lessons it imparts prove to be critical to citizens and businesses coping with the hardest times imaginable." --Frank Keating, Governor of Oklahoma)

• FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES: OUR JOURNEY FROM LITTLE ROCK TO WASHINGTON, D.C. (HarperCollins, 1997) by Webster Hubbell, my ghostwritten account of his rise to the Clinton Justice Department and subsequent fall from grace (“Friends in High Places is an unusual and essential text in terms of understanding the Clinton journey, and is notably introspective." --Carl Bernstein in A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton)

I work fast (the Kelley book, start to finish, took six months, including 50 outside interviews, and Virginia died during the process; the Hubbell book was written on a 60-day crash deadline).

I’m especially strong on narrative structure, thematic development, titling and positioning, and line editing for economy, subtlety, mood, and tone.

I’m also an editor writers love working with. In my magazine days, I nurtured my writers, didn’t compete with them, was sensitive to their feelings, respected their work, and in that way got them to give me what I--and they--needed.

That’s also one of my primary strengths as a collaborator or ghostwriter. You can’t compete with your subject, and sometimes you just have to let them be their difficult selves. The important thing is to listen to them, to hear what their bluster is saying about who they are inside.

“James Morgan is to be given credit for letting Kelley’s voice soar,” wrote one reviewer of Leading With My Heart. But "Voice” isn’t just what comes out of a subject’s mouth; it’s an attitude, a spirit, reflected in what comes out of his or her mouth. Before I began writing Virginia’s story, I went to lunch many times with her and her friends, listened to their banter, watched the way she strutted (she was clearly the leader), and detected the many vulnerabilities she was determined to cover up.

I also insisted on outside interviews, both to spark her memory and keep her honest. I think outside interviews are crucial to a well-done collaboration or ghost-writing project.

For a full career overview, click on http://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmorganbooks