James Kahn

James Kahn is an American medical specialist and writer, best known for his novelization of Return of the Jedi. Born in Chicago on December 30, 1947, Kahn received a degree in medical studies from the University of Chicago. His post-graduate training, specializing in Emergency Medicine, was completed at USC-LA County Hospital and UCLA. His original work includes three novels in the New World series: World Enough, and Time (1980), Time's Dark Laughter (1982), and Timefall (1987). As well as Return of the Jedi, he wrote the novelizations of the films Poltergeist and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He has also written for well-known television series such as Melrose Place and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was the producer of Melrose Place from 1996 to 1998.

James Kahn was born in Chicago in 1947, and began playing the guitar at age 12. He graduated from Maine Township High School West in 1965; then attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in Biology, drew a draft lottery number of 3, became involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, participated in the 1968 Democratic Convention riots, and studied with the Byronic scholar Jerome McGann. When, during his fifth year in the college, his short story, "The Box", won second place in a U. of C. contest, one of the judges, Daryl Hine, sent Kahn's story to Playboy magazine, which bought it and published it in March 1971 – marking Kahn’s debut as a professional writer.

Kahn went to medical school at the University of Chicago, as well, graduating in 1974. In 1973 he had another short story, "Mobius Trip," published in the short-lived, Chicago-based magazine Gallery. He did a medical internship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, then took a year-long hiatus during which he wrote his first novel, Diagnosis: Murder, which was later published by Carlyle Press, now defunct. He proceeded to do the first year of a Residency in Emergency Medicine at L.A.County Hospital/USC then took off another year in his training program to work various emergency rooms around Los Angeles. He finished his Residency training at UCLA, where he helped create the residency program in Emergency Medicine, and subsequently became part of the group of specialists who created and then ran the emergency room at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.

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