Jack Zipes is professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. Since his retirement, he founded the publishing house, Little Mole & Honey Bear in 2018. He continues to live happily ever after.

Jack received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1965 and has studied and taught at the University of Munich, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, the University of Florida, the University of Frankfurt, Anglia Ruskin University, and the University of Minnesota. His focus has been on the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, German-Jewish history and literature, children’s literature, and folklore and fairy tales.

In addition to his scholarly work, he is an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children’s theaters in Europe and the United States. In 1997 he founded Neighborhood Bridges, a creative storytelling program for inner-city schools, with the Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, and he has continued writing and translating books related to storytelling. In particular, he has been strongly influenced by Gianni Rodari, whose book, The Grammar of Fantasy, he translated in 1997. He’s written two of his own books, Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives (1995) and Speaking Out: Storytelling and Creative Drama for Children (2004).

Most recently, through his publishing house, Little Mole & Honey Bear in 2018, Jack has has published: Yussuf the Ostrich by Emery Kelen, Keedle, the Great by Deirdre and William Conselman, Jr., The Giant Ohl and Tiny Tim by Christian Bärmann, Johnny Breadless – A Pacifist Fairy Tale by Paul Vaillant-Couturier, Tistou: The boy with the Green Thumbs of Peace by Maurice Druon, Haunting and Hilarious Fairy Tales by Rolf Brandt and Teddy, the Little Refugee Mouse and The Magic Herb by Dorothy Burroughes.