Jonathan Englert is a novelist, screenwriter, long-form journalist and poet. As J.F. Englert, he is the author of a literary mystery series from Random House published in the United States, Germany, Italy (Garzanti) and Japan: A Dog About Town (2007), A Dog Among Diplomats (2008) and A Dog at Sea (2009-10). A highly intelligent Labrador retriever, a "dog apart", named Randolph narrates the books. His first non-fiction book, The Collar, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 2006 and received strong reviews and major media coverage. He has also written for The New York Times and other international publications on issues ranging from technology to religion to adventure sports. Jonathan is the recipient of the Nona Balakian Award for Literary Criticism, the Sackett Graduate Award for law and journalism and the Maxwell Award for his fiction. He earned a Masters of Science with honors from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. Before that he dropped out of law school to write. He is an avid, if still appreciably untested, open ocean sailor.