Mari Frank Interviews Jonathan Kirsch, Author and Publishing Attorney

JONATHAN KIRSCH is the author of twelve books, including seven books on the history of religion and religious texts, two novels and two books on publishing law. (See below.) He has contributed book reviews to the Los Angeles Times for more than 30 years, and he appears as a commentator and guest host on NPR affiliates KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM in Southern California. He also serves on the adjunct faculty of New York University's Professional Publishing Program. Kirsch has served as a guest lecturer at schools, universities, libraries, museums, synagogues and churches across the United States. He has also served as legal counsel on a pro bono basis for the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Center for Media Literacy, and California Lawyers for the Arts. He is also general counsel for the Independent Book Publishers Association (formerly Publishers Marketing Association), which presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for Special Achievement in Publishing in 1994. Kirsch is a member of California Lawyers for the Arts, the Los Angeles Copyright Society, the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Intellectual Property Sections of the California State Bar and the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Kirsch writes and lectures on legal topics relating to the publishing industry for the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Western Publishing Association, the Publishers Association of the West, the Publishers Association of Los Angeles, the National Museum Publishing Seminar of the University of Chicago's Graham School, the Authors Guild, the Practising Law Institute, the ABA Forum on Entertainment and Sports Law, the Intellectual Property, Internet and New Media Section of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Mystery Writers Association, the Independent Writers of Southern California, California Lawyers for the Arts, Sisters in Crime, Southwest Manuscripters, and other publishing industry associations and legal programs. Kirsch was born in 1949 in Los Angeles, attended high school in Culver City, and completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in Russian and Jewish history and Adlai E. Stevenson College honors at the Santa Cruz campus of the University of California. A member of the California State Bar since 1976, he earned a Juris Doctor degree cum laude at Loyola University School of Law. Before embarking on the practice of law, Kirsch was senior editor of California Magazine (formerly New West Magazine), where he specialized in a coverage of law, government and politics. Previously, he worked as West Coast correspondent for Newsweek, an editor for West and Home magazines at the Los Angeles Times, and a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel. As a book reviewer and a freelance writer, he has contributed to the Washington Post, Toronto Globe and Mail, California Lawyer, Los Angeles Lawyer, Los Angeles Magazine, New Republic, Publishers Weekly, Performing Arts, Human Behavior, L.A. Architect and other publications. He is also the author of two novels, Bad Moon Rising (1977) and Lovers in a Winter Circle (1978). Kirsch is married to Ann Benjamin Kirsch, Psy.D., a psychotherapist in private practice in Beverly Hills.