James Sturz is a freelance journalist, born and based in New York City. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University in 1987, and has taught English in Italy, worked in book publishing in New York, and served on staff at Vanity Fair.

    In addition to his novel Sasso (one of The Sunday Telegraph's top books of 2001), Sturz has written for more than sixty newspapers and magazines. His areas of interest include Italian politics and culture, American pop culture and crime, food, and travel adventure. His cover stories, features, articles, essays and reviews have run in such publications as The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, The New York Observer, The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Travel + Leisure, Condé Nast Traveler, National Geographic Adventure, Scuba Diving, Sport Diver, Saveur, Islands, Caribbean Travel & Life, Men’s Health, Playboy, Detour, Mondo, Entertainment Weekly, US, Glamour, Marie Claire, Redbook, Mirabella, Forward and Cigar Aficionado, among many others. He is currently a contributing writer at Leite's Culinaria.

    Sturz has also served as a guest editor for the adventure magazine Blue, as a contributing editor for Manhattan File and Lexus magazines, an assigning editor for Swing, as a columnist for The Westsider and Chelsea Clinton News. His journalism has been republished in Australian, British, Canadian, Finnish, Greek, Italian, South African and Spanish magazines. It also appears in Italy: The Best Travel Writing from The New York Times (Harry N. Abrams/Istituto Geografico DeAgostini, 2005), in Best Food Writing 2007 (Marlowe & Company, 2007), and has been twice anthologized in the annual textbook Human Sexuality (Dushkin Publishing Group/McGraw Hill, 1995 and 1997). His articles have also been used as course materials by the psychology and sociology departments of the University of Wisconsin, Santa Barbara City College, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Additionally, Sturz is a panelist for National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations and teaches travel writing and at Mediabistro in New York City. He is a member of the Authors Guild and International Association of Crime Writers, and has lectured before the Society of American Travel Writers. Sturz is a 2008 winner of a Solas Award in travel writing.

    On television, Sturz has appeared on NBC’s "Inside Edition," CNBC’s "Real Personal," Sky News's "The Book Show," and on Fox’s "Good Day New York"; he has also been heard on the German national radio station NDR, London's LBC, and on Lexus.com. Sturz has presented his work across the United States, in England and France, at universities, cultural institutes, theaters, festivals and museums, and interviews with him and reviews of his work have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Russia, Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

    James Sturz is also a PADI-certified divemaster. He is currently at work on his next novel.