James Kahn - Career

Career

Kahn went to medical school at the University of Chicago, as well, graduating in 1974. In 1973 he had another short story, “Mobius Trip,” published in the short-lived, Chicago-based magazine, Gallery. He did a medical internship at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, then took a year-long hiatus during which he married paper-artist Jill A. Littlewood, traveled to Europe, and wrote his first novel, Diagnosis: Murder, which was later published by Carlyle Press, now defunct. He proceeded to do the first year of a Residency in Emergency Medicine at L.A.County Hospital/USC – the busiest emergency room in the world – then took off another year in his training program to work various emergency rooms around Los Angeles. He finished his Residency training at UCLA, where he helped create the residency program in Emergency Medicine, and subsequently became part of the group of specialists who created and then ran the emergency room at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California.

It was during this period that he wrote his science fiction trilogy – World Enough, and Time; Time’s Dark Laughter; and Timefall – the first two published by Del Rey Publishing, the third by St. Martin’s Press, which later published his medical thriller, The Echo Vector. During these years, he also became the friend and local personal physician of Judy Lynn Del Rey, wife of renowned sci-fi author Lester Del Rey, and editor/publisher of the Del Rey imprint of Ballantine Books.

While working at St. John’s Hospital, he and others in the emergency room there were contacted by Kathleen Kennedy and Melissa Matheson soliciting technical assistance in the resuscitation of an alien. Kahn and others were invited to join the cast and crew in the production of the Steven Spielberg film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (at that time tentatively titled A Boy’s Life), where they wrote medical dialogue (uncredited), donned hazmat suits, and pounded on ET’s chest during the scene in which scientists attempted to resuscitate the small green creature (Kahn may be recognized as one of the clipboard-wielding doctors). While on the set, Kahn gave a copy of his novel, World Enough, and Time, to Spielberg – which resulted in Kahn getting the assignment to novelize the movie Poltergeist, then in post-production.

Kahn did several more novelizations after that – Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Goonies and Poltergeist II. During this period he also began to get television work, writing first for St. Elsewhere, and later, E/R – a sitcom about an emergency room starring Elliott Gould and Mary MacDonald, in which Kahn created the character of a teen orderly named Ace, played by a young George Clooney – who, ten years later, would star in another television series titled ER.

Kahn wrote primarily for television for the next 20 years. Among the series he worked on were Family Medical Center, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Beyond Reality, TekWar (created by William Shatner), Medicine Ball, Xena: Warrior Princess, Melrose Place (which he also co-executive produced in its last years), Star Trek: Voyager (also Supervising Producer) and All My Children (for which he and the writing staff were Emmy-nominated).

Later, under the tutelage of singer-songwriter Kate Wallace, and music producer/multi-instrumentalist David West, he focused more on writing music, releasing the Americana/folk CD Waterline in 2011, followed by the music video/short film Dolores Quits Dancing, the first song from his second album, Roadhouse Full of Blues (set for release in 2012).