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Jon Michaud

Biography

Jon Michaud

Jon Michaud is the Collection Management Librarian at the Millburn Free Public Library. His debut novel, WHEN TITO LOVED CLARA, was named a best book of the year by The Barnes & Noble Review and was a finalist for the Writer’s Center First Novel Prize. Michaud was the head librarian at The New Yorker from 2003-2012 and the head librarian at the Center for Fiction from 2015-2017. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Tin House, LitHub, CrimeReads and numerous other publications. The recipient of a 2022 fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, Michaud lives in Maplewood, NJ with his wife and two sons. An American citizen, he was nonetheless the Irish junior javelin champion in 1983.

Jon Michaud

Books by Jon Michaud

Last Call at Coogan's: The Life and Death of a Neighborhood Bar
by Jon Michaud - Memoir, Nonfiction

Coogan’s Bar and Restaurant opened in New York City’s Washington Heights in 1985 and closed its doors for good in the pandemic spring of 2020. Sometimes called Uptown City Hall, it became a staple of neighborhood life during its 35 years in operation --- a place of safety and a bulwark against prejudice in a multi-ethnic, majority-immigrant community undergoing rapid change. LAST CALL AT COOGAN’S tells the story of this beloved saloon --- from the challenging years of the late ’80s and early ’90s, when Washington Heights suffered from the highest crime rate in the city, to the 2010s, when gentrification pushed out longtime residents and nearly closed Coogan's itself. Only a massive community mobilization including local politicians and Lin-Manuel Miranda kept the doors open.