Julian Rubinstein

Julian Rubinstein is an American journalist, documentary filmmaker and educator. He is best known for his longform magazine journalism and his non-fiction books, ''Ballad of the Whiskey Robber,'' which chronicles the life of one of the world's most popular living folk heroes and ''The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood'', a multi-generational story of activism and gang violence in a northeast Denver community. While reporting ''The Holly'', he began filming THE HOLLY, a feature documentary, which captures significant problems in a federal anti-gang effort and the targeted takedown of an activist.

Early life

Rubinstein was born in the Bronx in 1968. He is the son of the psychiatrist David Rubinstein and the aerospace engineer Diane Rubinstein. The family moved to Denver from New York City in 1971 when David Rubinstein accepted a residency at the University of Colorado Medical School. Soon afterward, Dr. Rubinstein was drafted into the Air Force and became the base psychiatrist at Denver's now-closed Lowry Air Force Base, retiring as a major. Dr. Rubinstein was an attending at several Denver-area hospitals. At age 49, he was diagnosed with cancer and became known posthumously for his work counseling residents at Hospice of Metro Denver who didn't know he too was dying. Diane Rubinstein worked much of her career on government contracts, including missile defense, and retired from Raytheon.

After living in Denver for several years and Pueblo for a year while Dr. Rubinstein worked at the state mental hospital, the family moved to south Denver, where Julian Rubinstein attended Cherry Creek High School. He went on to receive a B.A. in Political Science from Emory University in 1991 and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, in 1992.

Rubinstein's younger brother, Dan Rubinstein, is the elected district attorney in Mesa County, Colorado.

Career

Rubinstein began his career as an agate clerk in the ''Washington Post'' Sports section, and wrote for the Sports and Style section, where he did music reviews and features. In 1994, he was hired as a reporter at ''Sports Illustrated'', where he worked for four years, covering tennis, NFL, NBA and extreme sports. In 1996, he worked with senior writer Gary Smith on "Crime and Punishment: The Saga of Richie Parker, which won the 1997 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing. In 1998, Rubinstein went to work for CBS Sports at the Nagano Winter Olympics as the co-editor-in-chief of a daily publication.

Afterward, Rubinstein became a freelance journalist, making a name as a reporter who was able to find overlooked or mistold stories, and land difficult interviews. His story, "They Call It Suicide", published in ''Rolling Stone'' in 2000, was reported over several weeks in Mato Grosso do Sul in which he gained the trust of a Guarani Indian tribe fleeing the reservation in fear of its chief. International news stories reported that the tribe had the highest suicide rate in the world, but Rubinstein discovered evidence that the chief was murdering his own people.

Rubinstein wrote what has been called the best profile of tennis player John McEnroe. The unabridged version of the profile appeared on the literary sports journalism site, SportsJones.com and espn.com, and an abridged version of the story was published in ''The New York Times Magazine'' in 2000. Rubinstein also chronicled the Hells Angels war with a rival biker gang, the Rock Machine, in Canada, and profiled the Hasidic international ecstasy kingpin, Jacob "Cookie" Orgad, a story selected for Best American Crime Writing.

In 2004, Rubinstein published his first non-fiction book ''Ballad of the Whiskey Robber'', about the Hungarian bank robber and folk hero Attila Ambrus. The book was published in six languages and was a number one bestseller in Hungary. In the U.S., it was the winner of Borders' 2005 "Original Voices" Non-fiction Book of the Year and was a finalist for the 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Fact Crime book and the 2005 Anthony Award for best Non-fiction book. A cabaret-style recording of the book was a finalist for the 2007 Audie Awards for Best Audio Book. The recording stars Eric Bogosian, Demetri Martin, former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, Gary Shteyngart, Jonathan Ames, Arthur Phillips, Darin Strauss, and Tommy Ramone. Warner Bros. and Johnny Depp optioned the book for a film.

In 2013, Rubinstein's story "Operation Easter" appeared in the ''New Yorker'' for which Rubinstein gained access to illegal egg collectors in the U.K. The story was named one of the "5 Most Entertaining Stories of the Year" by Longreads, and was listed as a Notable story of the Year by Best American Science and Nature Writing. In 2006, he wrote about his relationship with his father, David Rubinstein, in ''5280

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