About Mike Harkins and all this...

I write here because I've got several projects I'm continuously working on and other projects I feel so strongly about that I want to share them now, essays, opinions, some serious, some not. There are also recurring features, one-panel cartoons, and evocative (hopefully) photography.

Some stories, observations, and other things will develop quicker than others. Subscribers here had the first opportunity to read what later became, for a brief period, a 2022 Amazon #1 New Bestseller, If Steve, Then Steph, a longform profile of the little known creative partnership between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and his personal producer of over thirty years.

I will always strive to inform, reveal, or entertain you in a professional and creative manner. I won't always accomplish that in the subjective eyes of some readers, and for those who have some kind of issue with content here, I expect you to take it up with me in a respectful manner.  

Let's look at me in the third person:

Michael W. Harkins is an independent journalist and author. His 2016 book, "Move to Fire - A family's tragedy, a lone attorney, and a teenager's victory over a corrupt gunmaker," is the true story of a boy accidentally shot and paralyzed by a defective gun, and the attorney who won a historic product liability judgment for the boy a decade later. One of only nine independently published nonfiction titles to receive a 2016 starred review from Publishers Weekly, it was also included on its 2016 Spring Titles to Watch list and 2016 Independent All Stars list. It is in development as an independent feature film. The book's Facebook page can be accessed at facebook.com/movetofire.

His 2019 book, The Way to Begin, provides a creative writing method that teaches aspiring writers how to develop and transform ideas into a book's opening pages. His previous book, The Way to Communicate, a guide for developing enhanced personal communication skills, was released in 2010.

His forty-year creative career has included work for and with a wide variety of clients, including Jackson Family Wines / Kendall-Jackson, Gatorade, USC Keck Medical Center, the American Red Cross, Real Simple magazine, Thrice Fiction magazine, and NorthBay Biz magazine. His commentary, "Mom's Voice," was featured on NPR's All Things Considered, and his early concert industry work included concert production and video production with Journey, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, and Michael Jackson.

He is a former adult literacy tutor, hawkwatcher with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory volunteers with the Wild Horse Sanctuary of Shingletown, California, and is a veteran of the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division.