He was born in Buffalo, New York, where he attended City Honors School. Halpern later attended Yale University, where he received an undergraduate degree in 1997. He has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, the New Republic, Entertainment Weekly, Slate, Smithsonian, GQ, Sports Illustrated, New York Magazine and other publications. Halpern is also a commentator and a freelance producer for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and a contributor to This American Life. Jake's hour-long radio story, "Switched at Birth," is on This American Lifes "short list" as one of its top eight shows of all time. His first book, Braving Home, considered the lives of Americans who actively chose to live in or near dangerous places like volcanoes. The book was a main selection for the Book of the Month Club by Bill Bryson. His second book, Fame Junkies, considers the psychological underpinnings of celebrity obsession, and was the basis for an original series on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. Jake’s most recent nonfiction book, Bad Paper, was excerpted as a cover story for the New York Times Magazine and was a New York Times best seller. His first novel, Dormia, was published in the spring of 2009. The American Library Association hailed Dormia as a "wonderful intergenerational read" and a "strong choice for readers still mourning the end of the Harry Potter books." The second book of Dormia is called Worlds End. Barnes and Noble review explained it as,"This adventure is fantastic. The authors have written a story of great breadth and depth that can satisfy an adult and will cement a child's interest in this hidden world and the characters.. There are two other books in the Dormia trilogy, World's End and The Shadow Tree. His other young adult novels include Nightfall and Edgeland. Halpern also collaborated with illustrator, Michael Sloan, to create "," a true comic about a family of Syrian refugees that ran in the New York Times. In 2018, Halpern and Sloan received the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. Halpern is a former Fulbright Scholar and a current fellow of Morse College at Yale, where he teaches a seminar on journalism.
Books
Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths behind America's Favorite Addiction, nonfiction
Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld, nonfiction
