Jake Silverstein (born 1975 in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

) is an American writer and magazine editor. He is the

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

of ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...

'' and the author of ''Nothing Happened and Then It Did'', a novelized

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

Early life

Silverstein was raised in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, the elder of two children. His mother was a psychoanalyst and his father an architect. He attended

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

where he majored in English, and later earned an M.A. in English from

Hollins University Hollins University is a private university in Hollins, Virginia. Founded in 1842 as Valley Union Seminary in the historical settlement of Botetourt Springs, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States ...

and then an M.F.A. from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Michener Center for Writers The Michener Center for Writers is an interdisciplinary Masters of Fine Arts program in fiction, poetry, playwriting, and screenwriting at the University of Texas at Austin. It is widely regarded as one of the top creative writing programs in the wo ...

in 2006. He was a Fulbright scholar in Zacatecas, Mexico, in 2002.

Career

After graduating from college, Silverstein interned at ''Harper's'' in 1998, continued at the magazine for a year as a fact-checker, then moved to '' The Big Bend Sentinel'' in Marfa, Texas in 1999. Silverstein was the editor of ''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

'' from 2008 to 2014, during which time the magazine won four

National Magazine Awards The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

in 12 nominations. Under his tenure, the magazine had a circulation of approximately 300,000 and rising revenue, in contrast to many similar publications in the same period. He became the editor of ''

'' in May 2014, since which time the magazine has been a finalist for 14

and has won four. In 2017, the magazine story "The Fighter" was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been awarded since 1979 for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high liter ...

. He is the author of the hybrid memoir-novel ''Nothing Happened and Then It Did'', which he wrote during his M.F.A. program and published in 2010 with W.W. Norton & Company.

1619 Project

As editor-in-chief of the ''

New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'', Silverstein has played a role in the

1619 Project The 1619 Project is a long-form journalism endeavor developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, writers from ''The New York Times'', and ''The New York Times Magazine'' which "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery an ...

, a view of the role of slavery in the history of the United States. The project has come under criticism from historians, including

Sean Wilentz Robert Sean Wilentz (; born February 20, 1951) is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. His primary research interests include U.S. social and political history in the ...

Allen C. Guelzo Allen Carl Guelzo (born 1953) is an American historian who serves as Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He f ...

, Victoria E. Bynum,

James M. McPherson James Munro McPherson (born October 11, 1936) is an American Civil War historian, and is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor Emeritus of United States History at Princeton University. He received the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for '' Battle Cry of ...

Gordon S. Wood Gordon Stewart Wood (born November 27, 1933) is an American historian and professor at Brown University. He is a recipient of the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for '' The Radicalism of the American Revolution'' (1992). His book ''The Creation o ...

Richard Carwardine Richard John Carwardine (born 12 January 1947) is a Welsh historian and academic. He specialises in American politics and religion in the era of the American Civil War. The professor is best known for his work on President Abraham Lincoln an ...

and

Clayborne Carson Clayborne Carson (born June 15, 1944) is an American academic who is a professor of history at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. Since 1985, he has directed the Martin Luther King ...

who argue the project contains factual inaccuracies and distortions in attributing slavery a central role in the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

. Silverstein has disputed those claims. The author's essay for the project won a

Pulitzer Prize for Commentary The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary is an award administered by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism "for distinguished commentary, using any available journalistic tool". It is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are ...

in 2020, while the project itself has won many other honors.

Personal life

He is married to archivist Mary LaMotte Silverstein, with whom he has two sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silverstein, Jake Living people 1975 births Writers from California American magazine editors Writers from Austin, Texas American male journalists The New York Times people People from Marfa, Texas American male novelists American memoirists Michener Center for Writers alumni