Jay Porter Pederson

Background

Jay Porter Pederson was born on June 18, 1961 in Springfield, Minnesota, United States; the son of Charles Kenneth Pederson and Faith Lorene (Seymour) Pederson.

Education

Jay Pederson received a Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College in 1983.

Career

After gaining several years’ experience with Gale Research, Inc., Jay P. Pederson moved out on his own in 1988 to found an editorial-services firm, The Write One. As its owner and primary editor, Pederson produces and co-edits reference works such as the three-volume African American Almanac, a six hundred-page endeavor, and 1995’s African American Breakthroughs: Five Hundred Years of Black Firsts, both part of Gale’s UXL series aimed at middle- school students. African American Breakthroughs, co-edited with Jessie Carney Smith, was in large part derived from Smith’s 1994 Gale reference book Black Firsts: Two Thousand Years of Extraordinary Achievement. Entries are listed by subject and within each subject, chronologically. Subjects include business and labor; education; media; science, Medicine, and invention; religion; and justice, law enforcement, and public safety. The brief entries chronicle a large and impressive number of achievements that have ranked as "firsts" for African Americans. Source notes, cross-references, and photographs add to the work’s value.

In 1995 Pederson edited the fourth edition of the St. James Guide to Science-Fiction Writers, which was formerly published as Twentieth-Century Science-Fiction Writers. The fourth edition includes entries on 649 authors. Among the contributors were several individuals who, as science fiction writers, also had entries in their own rights. The approach for the new edition was more multicultural than for previous editions, and nineteenth-century writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Edward Everett Hale were added. An effort was made to include crossover writers from the mainstream or from other genres, such as Mark Twain, Marge Piercy, Lord Dunsany, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Pederson’s 1996 project, the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, was, like its sister volume, a revision of the corresponding volume in the earlier "Twentieth-Century Writers" series.

Achievements

• Jay Porter Pederson has been listed as a notable editor and writer by Marquis Who's Who. The books edited by Jay are popular all over the world.

Works

More photos

• book

  • International Directory of Company Histories

    (This multi-volume work is the first major reference to br...)

    2000
  • St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers

    (The nearly 1,300 pages in this detailed guide are devoted...)

    1996
  • African American Almanac

    (A comprehensive resource for the study of the African Ame...)

    1994
  • St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers 1995
  • African American Breakthroughs: 500 Years of Black Firsts 1995

Interests

• Avocations: hiking, fishing, cross-country and downhill skiing

Connections

Jay Pederson married Linda Margaret Plotz on June 2, 1984. The marriage produced three children - Kyle, Mark and John.

Father:

Charles Kenneth Pederson

Mother:

Faith Lorene (Seymour) Pederson

Spouse:

Linda Margaret Plotz

child:

Mark Pederson

child:

Kyle Pederson

child:

John Pederson