Bill Barnhart

I am a 40-year veteran of Chicago journalism. I have covered politics and, most recently, business and finance for several Chicago newspapers. I left the Chicago Tribune in 2008, where I was the paper's financial columnist, to pursue a career as an independent writer.

Writing about Justice John Paul Stevens was a challenge, in part because Stevens rarely grants interviews and in part because the work of the Supreme Court of the United States seems impenetrable to many people. But I figured that if I could figure our over-the-counter swaps on Wall Street I could figure out the Supreme Court.

Stevens himself told me and my research associate, Gene Schlickman, that his biography probably would not be a big seller. Yet Stevens' announcement that he would retire came at the same time the book, "John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life", was released by Northern Illinois University Press -- not bad timing.

My other work includes lengthy articles about economics, politics and business policy, focusing on the industrial metals industry, written for "Forward," the magazine of the Metals Service Center Institute.

My web site is www.barnhartbooks.com