In more than forty years as an award-winning magazine journalist, essayist, and critic, James Krohe Jr. has explored the history, politics, and culture of his native Illinois. His work has been published in more than fifty magazines and newspapers, including Illinois Issues and the Chicago Reader, and he is a longtime contributor to Springfield’s Illinois Times. He has written two popular monographs published by the Sangamon County Historical Society and edited the society’s anthology, A Springfield Reader, which in 1977 received the Illinois State Historical Society’s Award of Merit. He lives and works in the Chicago area.