Jeff Coplon

Jeff Coplon (born 1951, in Schenectady, New York) is an American journalist and author.

Written Work

After eight years as a daily newspaper reporter, culminating in a stint at the Kansas City Times, he went on to co-write (or “ghost”) 11 autobiographies. These include works with Cher and Bill Parcells, along with three New York Times best-sellers: Return with Honor (with Capt. Scott O’Grady, 1995); My Story (with Sarah, Duchess of York, 1996); and My Father’s Daughter (with Tina Sinatra, 2000). He also co-wrote, with Betty Mahmoody, For the Love of a Child (1992), the sequel to Not Without My Daughter.

Coplon’s solo work includes a non-fictional treatment of rodeo bull riding (Gold Buckle, HarperCollins West, 1995) and magazine pieces for New York (where he is a contributing editor), The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, and Playboy. While his topics vary broadly, he has written frequently about NBA basketball, and his work has twice been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing (1991 and 1997). His New York profile of the late Gerald Boyd, the highest-ranking black editor in the history of the New York Times, won a 2008 Mirror Award from the Newhouse School.

In a controversial article in The Village Voice in 1988, Coplon analyzed the scholarship surrounding the Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, and argued that allegations of genocide against the Soviet Union were historically dubious and politically motivated as part of a campaign by the Ukrainian nationalist community.^[1] Mainstream academics, including leadig historian and Sovietologist Robert Conquest, dismissed the article as "error and absurdity"^[2] .

Bibliography

• (2002) Only Son. New York: Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-52552-9.
• (2000) My Father’s Daughter. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-87076-2.
• (1998) The First Time. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-80900-1.
• (1997) The Best American Sports Writing. New York: Mariner Books. ISBN 0-395-79762-4.
• (1996) My Story. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83581-9.
• (1995) Gold Buckle: The Grand Obsession of Rodeo Bull Riders. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-258545-2.
• (1995) Return with Honor. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48330-9.
• (1995) Finding a Way to Win. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48122-5.
• (1992) For the Love of a Child. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ISBN 0-312-08194-4.
• (1991) The Best American Sports Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-57043-3.

References