Researching Mike Sager

A former Washington Post staff writer, Rolling Stone contributing editor, and writer at large for GQ, Sager has been a contributing writer for Esquire for more than three decades. In 2010 he received the American Society of Magazine Editors' National Magazine award for profile writing for his story "The Man Who Never Was," which appeared in Esquire. He is the author of more than a dozen books and e-books, and has served as an editor on several journalism text books. More than a dozen of his articles have been optioned for or have inspired Hollywood feature films, including Boogie Nights, starring Mark Wahlberg, and Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer,. In 2012 The Marinovich Project, a documentary based on Sager's Esquire article and featuring Sager as a narrator, aired on ESPN. Sager has read and lectured at many American schools of journalism. In 2012 he founded The Sager Group LLC, a content brand that publishes books, makes film and video, and designs logos, products and other marketing tools.

For most of his career, Sager worked as an investigative and embedded journalist and as an educator. In 2011 he founded The Sager Group LLC, a content brand, see more below.

In 2004 he released his first collection, Scary Monsters and Super Freaks, which became a Los Angeles Times bestseller, as did his next book, Revenge of the Donut Boys which was released in 2007. His first novel, Deviant Behavior, was published by Grove/Atlantic's Black Cat in April 2008. A third collection, Wounded Warriors, was published in October 2008 and received the Military Writers Society of America Founder's Award and the American Author's Association Golden Quill Award. Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen, with Vince Neil, published in September 2010, was a New York Times best seller. His fourth collection, The Someone You're Not, was published by The Sager Group in October 2012, as was Next Wave: America's New Generation of Great Literary Journalists, edited with Walt Harrington. His second novel, High Tolerance, was published by The Sager Group in May 2013.The Devil and John Holmes-25th Anniversary Author's Edition: And Other True Stories of Drugs, Porn, and Murder, was published in 2014.Stoned Again: The High Times and Strange Life of a Drugs Correspondent, was published by Byliner Selects in 2015. The Lonely Hedonist: True Stories of Sex, Drugs, Dinosaurs and Peter Dinklage, was published by The Sager Group in 2017. The second edition of Revenge of the Donut Boys was issued by The Sager Group in 2018. VetVille: True Stories of the US Marines was issued by The Sager Group in 2019. Shaman: The Mysterious Life and Impeccable Death of Carlos Castaneda was issued by The Sager Group and NeoText in 2020. Hunting Marlon Brando: A True Story was issued by The Sager Group and NeoText in 2021.