John J. Leary is a retired executive editor of the Albany (N. Y.) Times Union. He is the author of The Irish: Our History and five novels: The Claddagh Mission, Royal Targets, In Search of Irish Kings, Correspondent X and Charles Dickens and the Irish Fairy King Plot.

Former member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the New York Society of Editors, and attended the American Press Institute at Columbia University.