Mark Jonathan Harris

Mark Jonathan Harris is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and novelist. After graduating from Harvard College, he started his professional career as a reporter for the famed City News Bureau of Chicago, covering crime from five in the afternoon to two in the morning. Within a year he moved on to reporting national news for the Associated Press and then to television, where he started making documentary films. Throughout his career he has alternated between filmmaking, journalism, and fiction. His essays and articles have appeared in a number of national newspapers and magazines and his short stories in literary journals. He has published five novels for children, which have won multiple awards. Among the many documentaries he has written, directed, and produced are three which have won Oscars: "The Redwoods," "The Long Way Home," and "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport." For many years he also taught filmmaking at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he was a Distinguished Professor. His collection of short stories, "Misfits," was named a 2025 Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Awards, one of the most prestigious book award programs globally for independent authors.