Mike Sager
Encyclopedia
Mike Sager is a bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He has been called "the Beat poet of American journalism, that rare reporter who can make literature out of shabby reality." For more than a dozen years he has been a Writer-at-Large for Esquire
. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors' National Magazine award for profile writing for his story "The Man Who Never Was," which appeared in Esquire.
A former Washington Post staff writer and Rolling Stone
contributing editor, Sager has made a career chronicling the dark underbelly of the American scene and psyche. His first collection, Scary Monsters and Super Freaks, published in 2003, was a Los Angeles Times
bestseller, as was his second, Revenge of the Donut Boys, published in 2007. His first novel, Deviant Behavior, was published by Grove/Atlantic's Black Cat in April, 2008. A third collection, Wounded Warriors, was published in October, 2008 and received the Military Writers Society of America Founder's Award and the American Author's Association Golden Quill Award. In January 2010, Sager became a regular contributor to the online website, SanDiego.com. Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen, with Vince Neil, published in September, 2010, was a New York Times best seller.
, on August 17, 1956, to Beverly Rosenberg and Marvin Miles Sager—who hailed, respectively, from Culpepper
and Fredericksburg, Virginia
. Eventually the family, along with younger sister Wendy, would settle in Baltimore, Maryland. Mike graduated from Pikesville High School
in 1974. At Emory University
he played varsity soccer; served as president of his fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi
; was selected to Phi Beta Kappa; and was an editor of several school publications, including the college's literary magazine and weekly newspaper, The Emory Wheel, where he served under Henry Schuster, a life-long friend who would go on to become an award-winning producer at CNN and CBS 60 Minutes
During his senior year at Emory, Sager studied creative writing with the noted author and jazz historian Albert Murray, who would have a profound influence on his writing style, introducing the notions of rhythm and music in the context of prose. That year he also interned at the alternative weekly Creative Loafing
, his first taste of professional journalism. He received his BA in history in June, 1978.
That fall, Sager moved to Washington, D.C.
and began attending Georgetown University
Law Center. He quit after three weeks to pursue a career in writing.
and promoted to staff writer.
Over the next five years, under the supervision of publisher Donald Graham
, who had taken an interest in Sager as the first white male to work his way up from copy boy to reporter in twenty years (future executive editor Len Downie had been the last), Sager moved though the ranks from night police, to cops and courts, to night rewrite, to general assignment, most of that time under Graham’s Harvard roommate, City Editor Herb Denton. Along the way, Sager would be assigned to work with newly-arrived editor Walt Harrington, who asked him, upon their first meeting, “Have you ever read Tom Wolfe
?” The epiphany of reading Wolfe’s primer, The New Journalism
, would follow shortly thereafter. (Harrington would go on to author several books, including Intimate Journalism used as a primer in universities nationwide. He retired in 2011 as Dean, College of Media, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.) In time, Sager became a roving feature writer, charged with covering rural Virginia
, a role he would later liken to that of a foreign correspondent.
and the Far East, doing journalism and seeing the world. For one story, he spent six weeks in Nepal
with a group of doctors and medical students; they trekked to a region that had been settled by Tibetan Buddhist refugees and set up a medical clinic. While in Katmandu, Sager interviewed Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
, the King of Nepal, who would be later be gunned down by his own son. Also on that trip, Sager would research his first piece for Rolling Stone
, in Thailand
, about ex-pat Vietnam
veterans. Upon his return, in early 1984, Sager resigned from the Post to pursue a career in magazines.
and Regardie’s magazines in Washington. While at Regardie's he wrote a monthly reported column called "Washington Beat." In 1987 he became a Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone
; in 1993 he authored a regular column for Stone called "Living in the USA". In late 1993 Sager became a Writer-at-Large for GQ. He went to Esquire in 1997. He has also written for Vibe, Spy, Interview, and Playboy.
Eight of his articles have been optioned for or have inspired Hollywood feature films, including Boogie Nights
, starring Mark Wahlberg
, Wonderland
, starring Val Kilmer
, and Veronica Guerin
, starring Cate Blanchett
. Betrayed by Love, starring Patricia Arquette
and Mare Winningham
, premiered as a television movie.
; a 625 pound man in El Monte, CA; teenage pit bull fighters in the Philadelphia barrio; Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; heroin addicts on the Lower East Side; Aryan Nations
troopers in Idaho; U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton; Tupperware
saleswomen in suburban Maryland
; high school boys in Orange County. Since the late nineties, when he moved to California
, he has also done dozens of celebrity profiles, including Jack Nicholson
, Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt
, Angelina Jolie
, Kirk Douglas
, Julia Child
, Ray Charles
, Faye Dunaway
, Evel Knievel
, Roseanne Barr
, Alan Arkin
, and Rod Steiger
. He has been credited with being the pioneer of Esquire's well known feature, "What I've Learned."
, New York University
, Northwestern
, the University of Missouri
, and in many other forums, ranging from the Monarch School for Homeless Children to the Yale Law School
. His work is included in three textbooks presently in use in college classrooms. For four years he led a popular writing workshop at the University of California, Irvine
, where he was a Pereira Visiting Writer. He lives with his son, Miles, in La Jolla, California.
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
. In 2010 he won the American Society of Magazine Editors' National Magazine award for profile writing for his story "The Man Who Never Was," which appeared in Esquire.
A former Washington Post staff writer and Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
contributing editor, Sager has made a career chronicling the dark underbelly of the American scene and psyche. His first collection, Scary Monsters and Super Freaks, published in 2003, was a Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
bestseller, as was his second, Revenge of the Donut Boys, published in 2007. His first novel, Deviant Behavior, was published by Grove/Atlantic's Black Cat in April, 2008. A third collection, Wounded Warriors, was published in October, 2008 and received the Military Writers Society of America Founder's Award and the American Author's Association Golden Quill Award. In January 2010, Sager became a regular contributor to the online website, SanDiego.com. Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen, with Vince Neil, published in September, 2010, was a New York Times best seller.
Early life
Sager was born in Charlottesville, VirginiaCharlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
, on August 17, 1956, to Beverly Rosenberg and Marvin Miles Sager—who hailed, respectively, from Culpepper
Culpeper, Virginia
Culpeper is an incorporated town in Culpeper County, Virginia, United States. The population was 9,664 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Culpeper County. Culpeper is part of the Culpeper Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Culpeper County. Both the Town of Culpeper and...
and Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia located south of Washington, D.C., and north of Richmond. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,286...
. Eventually the family, along with younger sister Wendy, would settle in Baltimore, Maryland. Mike graduated from Pikesville High School
Pikesville High School
Pikesville High School is a four-year public high school in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is part of the Baltimore County Public Schools consolidated school district...
in 1974. At Emory University
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...
he played varsity soccer; served as president of his fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi
Tau Epsilon Phi
Tau Epsilon Phi is an American fraternity with 14 active chapters, chiefly located at universities and colleges on the East Coast of the United States...
; was selected to Phi Beta Kappa; and was an editor of several school publications, including the college's literary magazine and weekly newspaper, The Emory Wheel, where he served under Henry Schuster, a life-long friend who would go on to become an award-winning producer at CNN and CBS 60 Minutes
During his senior year at Emory, Sager studied creative writing with the noted author and jazz historian Albert Murray, who would have a profound influence on his writing style, introducing the notions of rhythm and music in the context of prose. That year he also interned at the alternative weekly Creative Loafing
Creative Loafing
CL Inc. is the Tampa, Florida-based publisher of three city newsweeklies and their associated websites. Each of the papers focuses on local news, politics, arts and entertainment, and restaurants...
, his first taste of professional journalism. He received his BA in history in June, 1978.
That fall, Sager moved to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and began attending Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...
Law Center. He quit after three weeks to pursue a career in writing.
Newspapers
After failing the spelling and typing tests administered by the human resources department of the Washington Post, Sager managed to land a lesser position as a copy boy on the graveyard shift,7 p.m. until 3 a.m.. Eleven months later, working in his off-hours as a freelancer, Sager broke an investigative story about abuses at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, his first front page article at the Post. That evening, he was called into the glass office of then-Metro Editor Bob WoodwardBob Woodward
Robert Upshur Woodward is an American investigative journalist and non-fiction author. He has worked for The Washington Post since 1971 as a reporter, and is currently an associate editor of the Post....
and promoted to staff writer.
Over the next five years, under the supervision of publisher Donald Graham
Donald Graham
Donald Graham may refer to:* Donald Graham , politician in British Columbia, Canada* Donald E. Graham , chairman of the Washington Post Company, 2000–present, publisher of Washington Post* Donald W...
, who had taken an interest in Sager as the first white male to work his way up from copy boy to reporter in twenty years (future executive editor Len Downie had been the last), Sager moved though the ranks from night police, to cops and courts, to night rewrite, to general assignment, most of that time under Graham’s Harvard roommate, City Editor Herb Denton. Along the way, Sager would be assigned to work with newly-arrived editor Walt Harrington, who asked him, upon their first meeting, “Have you ever read Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
?” The epiphany of reading Wolfe’s primer, The New Journalism
The New Journalism
The New Journalism is a 1973 anthology of journalism edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. The book is both a manifesto for a new type of journalism by Wolfe, and a collection of examples of New Journalism by American writers, covering a variety of subjects from the frivolous to the deadly serious...
, would follow shortly thereafter. (Harrington would go on to author several books, including Intimate Journalism used as a primer in universities nationwide. He retired in 2011 as Dean, College of Media, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.) In time, Sager became a roving feature writer, charged with covering rural Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, a role he would later liken to that of a foreign correspondent.
Breakthrough
In the fall of 1983, Sager took a leave of absence from the Post to travel around AsiaAsia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and the Far East, doing journalism and seeing the world. For one story, he spent six weeks in Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
with a group of doctors and medical students; they trekked to a region that had been settled by Tibetan Buddhist refugees and set up a medical clinic. While in Katmandu, Sager interviewed Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
Birendra of Nepal
Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev was a King of Nepal. The son of King Mahendra, whom he succeeded in 1972, he reigned until his death in the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre...
, the King of Nepal, who would be later be gunned down by his own son. Also on that trip, Sager would research his first piece for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, about ex-pat Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
veterans. Upon his return, in early 1984, Sager resigned from the Post to pursue a career in magazines.
Magazines and film
For the next several years, Sager wrote for WashingtonianWashingtonian (magazine)
Washingtonian is a monthly magazine distributed in the Washington, DC area since 1965. The magazine describes itself as "the magazine Washington lives by." The magazine's core focuses are local feature journalism, guide book-style articles, and real estate advice.-Editorial Content:Washingtonian...
and Regardie’s magazines in Washington. While at Regardie's he wrote a monthly reported column called "Washington Beat." In 1987 he became a Contributing Editor of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
; in 1993 he authored a regular column for Stone called "Living in the USA". In late 1993 Sager became a Writer-at-Large for GQ. He went to Esquire in 1997. He has also written for Vibe, Spy, Interview, and Playboy.
Eight of his articles have been optioned for or have inspired Hollywood feature films, including Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights
Boogie Nights is a 1997 drama film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Set in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley, the script focuses on a young nightclub dishwasher who becomes a popular star of pornographic films, and chronicles his rise and fall from the Golden Age of Porn of the 1970s...
, starring Mark Wahlberg
Mark Wahlberg
Mark Robert Michael Wahlberg is an American actor, film and television producer, and former rapper. He was known as Marky Mark in his earlier years, and became famous for his 1991 debut as a musician with the band Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. He was named No. 1 on VH1's 40 Hottest Hotties of...
, Wonderland
Wonderland (film)
Wonderland is a 2003 American crime and drama film co-written and directed by James Cox, and based on the real-life Wonderland Murders that occurred in 1981. The film stars Val Kilmer, Kate Bosworth, Lisa Kudrow, Dylan McDermott, Josh Lucas, Christina Applegate, and Tim Blake Nelson...
, starring Val Kilmer
Val Kilmer
Val Edward Kilmer is an American actor. Originally a stage actor, Kilmer became popular in the mid-1980s after a string of appearances in comedy films, starting with Top Secret! , then the cult classic Real Genius , as well as blockbuster action films, including a supporting role in Top Gun and a...
, and Veronica Guerin
Veronica Guerin (film)
Veronica Guerin is a 2003 Irish biographical film directed by Joel Schumacher. The screenplay by Carol Doyle and Mary Agnes Donoghue focuses on Irish journalist Veronica Guerin, whose investigation into the drug trade in Dublin led to her murder in 1996....
, starring Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
. Betrayed by Love, starring Patricia Arquette
Patricia Arquette
Patricia T. Arquette is an American actress and director. She played the lead character in the supernatural drama series Medium for which she won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series....
and Mare Winningham
Mare Winningham
Mare Winningham , born Mary Megan Winningham, is an American actress and singer-songwriter. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Drama Desk, 7 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won an Independent Spirit Award and two Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.She is...
, premiered as a television movie.
"Literary anthropology"
Over the years, Sager has practiced a form of journalism that some have called “literary anthropology.” For his stories, he has lived with a crack gang in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
; a 625 pound man in El Monte, CA; teenage pit bull fighters in the Philadelphia barrio; Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; heroin addicts on the Lower East Side; Aryan Nations
Aryan Nations
Aryan Nations is a white supremacist religious organization originally based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Richard Girnt Butler founded the group in the 1970s, as an arm of the Christian Identity organization Church of Jesus Christ–Christian...
troopers in Idaho; U.S. Marines at Camp Pendleton; Tupperware
Tupperware
Tupperware is the name of a home products line that includes preparation, storage, containment, and serving products for the kitchen and home, which were first introduced to the public in 1946....
saleswomen in suburban Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
; high school boys in Orange County. Since the late nineties, when he moved to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, he has also done dozens of celebrity profiles, including Jack Nicholson
Jack Nicholson
John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...
, Robert DeNiro, Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
, Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie is an American actress. She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009 and 2011. Jolie is noted for promoting humanitarian causes as a Goodwill Ambassador for the...
, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, Julia Child
Julia Child
Julia Child was an American chef, author, and television personality. She is recognized for introducing French cuisine to the American public with her debut cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and her subsequent television programs, the most notable of which was The French Chef, which...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
, Evel Knievel
Evel Knievel
Evel Knievel , born Robert Craig Knievel, was an American daredevil and entertainer. In his career he attempted over 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980, and in 1974, a failed jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket...
, Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Barr
Roseanne Cherrie Barr is an American actress, comedian, writer, television producer and director. Barr began her career in stand-up comedy at clubs before gaining fame for her role in the sitcom Roseanne. The show was a hit and lasted nine seasons, from 1988 to 1997...
, Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
, and Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
. He has been credited with being the pioneer of Esquire's well known feature, "What I've Learned."
Academics
Sager has read and lectured at all the major American schools of journalism, including Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, Northwestern
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
, and in many other forums, ranging from the Monarch School for Homeless Children to the Yale Law School
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
. His work is included in three textbooks presently in use in college classrooms. For four years he led a popular writing workshop at the University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, where he was a Pereira Visiting Writer. He lives with his son, Miles, in La Jolla, California.