Michael Castleman

Michael Zelig Castleman (born February 2, 1950) is an American journalist and novelist, based in San Francisco. During a 35-year-career, he has published 13 nonfiction books and more than 2,500 magazine and Web articles. His nonfiction titles have more than 2.5 million copies in print. As a novelist, he has written four murder mysteries set in San Francisco that deal, in part, with the city’s rich history.

Michael Castleman
Born (1950-02-02) February 2, 1950
Brookline, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
OccupationAuthor, journalist, novelist

Childhood and education

Michael Castleman was born on February 2, 1950 in Brookline, Massachusetts to parents of Ukrainian descent. He was named after a deceased relative, per Jewish tradition.[1] He grew up in Lynbrook, a Long Island suburb of New York City. His father was a professor of metallurgy at Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn. His mother was a school librarian. Castleman graduated from Malverne High School in 1968 and attended the University of Michigan, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1972. He earned a Masters in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977.

Magazine and web journalism

In college, Castleman spent most of his non-academic time working to end the war in Vietnam. After graduating, his anti-war efforts led to a job doing outreach for the Ann Arbor Free Clinic. Castleman quickly saw that most of the patients had problems that could have been easily prevented with good health information. He approached the underground newspaper, the Ann Arbor Sun, with a proposal to write regular health articles. For three years (1973-1975), he wrote about optimal wellness, staying healthy, mainstream medicine, alternative therapies, nutrition, fitness, and sexuality. He has written about those subjects ever since and has been called "one of the nation's leading health writers" (Library Journal).

Arriving in San Francisco in 1975, he wrote health articles for Pacific News Service, a small anti-war press syndicate that, after the Vietnam war, published news the mainstream media ignored. To supplement his writing income, Castleman became the director of the San Francisco Men’s Reproductive Health Clinic, the nation’s first birth control clinic for men. It distributed thousands of condoms for free before the AIDS epidemic when the devices were not sold openly. To bring men in, clinic staff were trained by the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center’s Human Sexuality Program in brief-intervention sex counseling. Castleman and his colleagues provided information and counseling for those with simple problems, and referred those with more complex issues to sex therapists. This model—information, counseling, and when necessary, referral—has informed Castleman’s sexuality journalism ever since.

In 1976, Castleman began writing for a tiny Marin County-based health magazine, Medical Self-Care, whose motto was: "It's not enough for doctors to stop playing God. The rest of us must get up off our knees." Medical Self-Care was one of the first health publications to cover both mainstream medicine and alternative therapies. Castleman became its editor in 1979. When the magazine folded in 1990, Castleman became a full-time freelance health journalist, writing for national magazines, among them:

AARP The Magazine,[2] Family Circle,[3] Ladies Home Journal,[4] Mother Earth News,[5] Mother Jones,[6] Reader's Digest,[7] Smithsonian,[8] Yoga Journal .[9]

From 1991 to 1995, Castleman answered all the sex questions submitted to the Playboy Advisor.

Castleman retired from magazine journalism in 2008 to devote himself to fiction, but continues to write about sexuality. He currently is publisher of the advice site Great Sex Guidance, and writes the “All About Sex” blog for Psychology Today.[10] He has also contributed to many websites, among them: Playboy.com, WebMD, and Salon.com.

Bibliography

Non-Fiction
  • Sexual Solutions: For Men and the Women Who Love Them. Simon and Schuster. 1980. ASIN B002NANK1G.
  • Crime Free: The Community Crime Prevention Handbook. Simon and Schuster. 1984. ISBN 978-0-671-60279-6.
  • Cold Cures: The Complete Guide to Prevention and Treatment of the Common Cold and Flu. Ballantine. 1987. ISBN 978-0-449-90225-7.
  • The Medical Self-Care Book of Women’s Health (coauthor with Sadja Greenwood, M.D. and Bobbie Hasselbring). Doubleday. 1987. ISBN 978-0-385-23325-5.
  • Before You Call The Doctor: Safe, Effective, Self-Care for Over 300 Common Medical Problems (coauthor with Anne Simons, M.D., and Bobbie Hasselbring). Ballantine. 1992. ISBN 978-0-449-00742-6.
  • An Aspirin A Day: What You Can Do To Prevent Heart Attack, Stroke, and Cancer. Hyperion. 1993. ISBN 978-1-56282-880-6.
  • Nature’s Cures: 33 Natural Therapies to Improve Your Health and Well-Being. Rodale. 1996. ISBN 978-0-553-57696-2.
  • Blended Medicine: How to Combine the Best of Mainstream and Alternative Medicine for Optimal Health and Wellness. Rodale. 2000. ISBN 978-1-57954-593-2.
  • There's Still a Person In There: The Complete Guide to Preventing, Treating, and Coping with Alzheimer’s Disease (coauthor with Matthew Naythons, M.D. and Dolores Gallagher-Thompson, Ph.D). Putnam. 2000. ISBN 978-0-399-52635-0.
  • The New Healing Herbs: The Classic Guide to Nature's Medicine. Rodale. 2001. ISBN 978-1-57954-304-4.
  • Great Sex: A Man’s Guide to the Secrets of Total-Body Lovemaking. Rodale. 2004. ISBN 978-1-57954-737-0.
  • Building Bone Vitality: A Revolutionary Diet Plan to Prevent Bone Loss and Reverse Osteoporosis Without Calcium, Estrogen, or Drugs (coauthor with Amy Lanou, Ph.D.). McGraw-Hill. 2009. ISBN 978-0-07-160019-4.
  • When Someone Dies: The Quick, Practical, Complete Guide to the Logistics of Death (coauthor with Scott Smith). Scribner. 2013. ISBN 978-1-4767-0021-2.
  • Sizzling Sex for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Maximize Erotic Pleasure at Any Age. Skyhorse. 2021. ISBN 978-1-5107-6255-8.

Fiction

References
  1. "About Killer Weed". killerweednovel.com. Retrieved 2014-11-05.
  2. Castleman, Michael. "8 Reasons Sex Improves Your Health". AARP The Magazine. Retrieved June 18, 2012.
  3. Castleman, Michael. "10 Ways to Reduce Your Cancer Risk". Family Circle. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
  4. Castleman, Michael. "Quiz: Test Your Health IQ". Ladies Home Journal. Archived from the original on 27 January 2013. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  5. Castleman, Michael. "75 Safe and Effective Herbal Remedies". Mother Earth News. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  6. Castleman, Michael. "The Other Drug War". Mother Jones. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  7. Castleman, Michael. "37 Stress Management Tips". Reader’s Digest. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  8. Castleman, Michael. "Grace Under Fire". Smithsonian. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  9. Castleman, Michael. "Monthly Moves". Yoga Journal. Retrieved 19 June 2012.
  10. Castleman, Michael. "All About Sex". Psychology Today. Retrieved 19 June 2012.


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