James Hughes

Writer + Editor

James Hughes is a Chicago-based writer and editor. He contributes to Grantland and Slate, and has written for The Atlantic, Film Comment, The Paris Review, The Chicago Reader, Wax Poetics, The Village Voice, The Believer, and the National Hockey League.

For over a decade, he was the managing editor and co-publisher of Stop Smiling magazine and its book imprint, in partnership with Melville House/Random House. While at the magazine, James profiled such artists as David Lynch, Robert Altman, Errol Morris, and jazz great Bobby Hutcherson. As a book editor, his titles include Road to Seeing by award-winning photographer Dan Winters and How to Wreck a Nice Beach by Dave Tompkins, which was celebrated by Amazon as ‘Entertainment Book of 2010,’ and declared ‘one of the best music books ever written’ by the Los Angeles Times.