Jason A. Michael

Essence best selling author Jason A. Michael, a native Detroiter and, in fact, a Spirit of Detroit award winner, earned his bachelors degree in journalism from Wayne State University. His work has appeared in the anthologies Journeys Across The Rainbow: Inspirational Stories for the Human Race (Rainbow Pride Press) and America Now (Bedford/St. Martin's Press). Jason has a passion for urban music and spent a decade in the employ of Grammy-award-winning songwriter and soul diva Betty Wright. As an entertainment writer he has interviewed everyone from Motown legends Martha Reeves and Mary Wilson to Dionne Warwick and Patti LaBelle. Outside of the urban genre, he has interviewed such wide ranging celebrities as Dolly Parton, Melissa Etheridge and even Boy George. Told by a laundry list of publishing houses that no one remembered Phyllis and that there was no market for a book about her, Jason formed his own imprint, JAM Books, on which to release her story.