Jackson Kuhl is a writer and author focusing on American history, biography, and historical fiction.
Kuhl’s specialty is introducing readers to forgotten history. His first book, Samuel Smedley, Connecticut Privateer (The History Press, 2011), brings to life the story of the Revolutionary War’s most daring sea captain in a swashbuckling tale of high-seas adventure. Kuhl has spoken about the role of privateers in the American Revolution at bookstores, libraries, historical societies, museums, and private clubs.
Kuhl has worked as an editor, journalist, memoir ghostwriter, and freelance writer, with hundreds of bylines to his credit. Kuhl has written for Atlas Obscura, Electric Literature, Journal of the American Revolution, National Geographic News, local newspapers, and other publications. For more than a decade he contributed to Dig and Calliope, magazines about archaeology and history for middle-grade readers. He also wrote a regular column on dinosaurs. As a journalist, Kuhl once reported from Egypt as part of a mummy unwrapping that occurred on live television.
Kuhl’s writing often involves history and archaeology. He has written about the lost state of Franklin; the history of Prohibition in New York City; the whale-boat wars in Long Island Sound during the American Revolution; the ruined island home of a former Olympian; and more. An article Kuhl wrote about Starbucks, coffee, and globalization was reprinted in a textbook and became assigned reading in colleges around the world.
Kuhl also writes tales of gothic suspense in historical settings. He is the author of the acclaimed gothic mystery The Island of Small Misfortunes (Regal House, 2025), set in Connecticut’s Thimble Islands over the course of a storm-wracked weekend, as well as the dark and brooding A Season of Whispers (Whitney & Post, 2020), which Kirkus Reviews called, “A slim but delightful tale of terror set in transcendentalist New England.” Kuhl loves to read and write ghost stories, and his eerie fiction has appeared in dozens of anthologies and magazines.
Kuhl regularly appears at bookselling events throughout Connecticut, including multi-author forums and book signings at Barnes & Noble stores, independent bookstores, and libraries. He is a frequent panelist at conventions such as StokerCon and NecronomiCon, and was a primary organizer of StokerCon 2025, the annual convention for the Horror Writers Association. He has also organized book-launching events for anthologies featuring his fiction.
Kuhl is a member of the Association for the Study of Connecticut History, the Fairfield Museum and History Center, and the Horror Writers Association.
Kuhl holds a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College and a master’s in Archaeological Studies from Yale. He teaches writing at Mitchell College in New London.