Jim Morrison has been a free-lance writer since 1990.

 

 His stories have appeared in Smithsonian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, George, This Old House, National Wildlife, Smart Money’s offspring, Context, Family PC, Good Housekeeping, Playboy, Biography, The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, Utne Reader, Southwest Spirit, the magazine of Southwest Airlines, and American Way, the magazine of American Airlines, among others. He writes about a variety of subjects including the environment, science, business, sports, popular culture and travel.

 

 Prior to freelancing, he was a staff writer at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Va. where he covered cops, courts, AIDS, abortion, the Navy, investigations and popular culture. He has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

 

He is the winner of several awards for his writing. Most recently, he won a silver award in the Environmental Tourism category of the 2003 Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition judged  by the University of Missouri and sponsored by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

 

From July 2001 until June 2003 he was president of The American Society of Journalists and Authors, an association of 1,100 nonfiction freelance writers. As president of ASJA, he was deeply involved in negotiations settling a class action suit for copyright infringement against electronic databases and publishers for $18 million on behalf of freelance writers.

 

In 2001, he was one of 23 journalists nationwide named child policy fellows in a program administered by the University of Maryland and funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.