About

Besides "Sniff It First," Jay is the author of the bestselling "Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion," which he didn't have to publish himself. (Three Rivers Press, an imprint of Crown, did.)

Jay travels constantly to spread the gospel of rhetoric, the ancient art of persuasion. His blog, Figarospeech.com, rips apart the innards of what people say in politics and the media and reveals their tricks and pratfalls.

A frequent writer for numerous magazines, Jay also consults on magazine publishing for a variety of companies ranging from Time Warner to Southwest Airlines. He's also one of the nation's few consulting rhetoricians, with clients as diverse as the Golf Institute and NASA.

Jay lives with his wife, Dorothy Behlen Heinrichs, vice president for institutional advancement at the Vermont Law School. They live on 150 acres in rural New Hampshire with their cat, Isabella. They have two grown children.