Klaus Stimeder

Klaus Josef Stimeder (aka JM Stim)^[1], (* March 17, 1975 in Schaerding, Austria) is an author and a journalist who lives in Los Angeles, California. In Germany and Austria the former war correspondent became known as the founder and publisher of political monthly Datum. In the US and Canada he is mostly known for his 2011 book Here is Berlin.^[2]

JM Stim (left) at a reading in Washington D.C. in October 2012 (with Tim Mohr)

Personal

Stimeder grew up in the Upper Austrian village of Obernberg am Inn. During his childhood and teenage years Stimeder's biggest influence was his uncle Franz Martin who was living in Salzburg. In the seventies and eighties many contemporary Austrian artists and writers gathered in Martin's apartments (e.g. Schloss Freisaal) whose works and lifestyles had a big impact on Stim (i.e. H. C. Artmann for whose readings Martin had been delivering the musical support for many years, Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Lucas Suppin and painter Kiki Kogelnik).

Career

Stimeder started a career in journalism in 1998 at Format magazine for which he covered the war in Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Israel and the Palestinian territories and the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua. In 2000 he went to New York City to intern at German-language weekly New Yorker Staats-Zeitung. While in New York Stimeder learned about the New York Times' Code of Ethics^[3] and the work of The New Yorker's fact-checking-department. Based on these experiences he later wrote the first-ever Code of Ethics for an Austrian periodical.^[4]

After covering the wars in Afghanistan^[5][6] and Iraq he interned at Berlin daily Tagesspiegel^[7], before joining Der Standard as a sports reporter. While working at Der Standard Stimeder met London-based financial consultant Johannes Weyringer with whom he founded DATUM – Seiten der Zeit. Datum's editorial concept was based on The New Yorker and German weeklies Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin. The first issue was published in Vienna in May 2004.

As publisher and editor Stimeder won over renowned artists, politicians, actors and scientists as contributors, i.e. Actionist painter Günter Brus, EU commissioner Johannes Hahn, actor Karl Markovics, philosopher Franz Schuh and quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger. He also co-initiated a series of literary events ("Datum presents") that brought Chuck Palahniuk, Ian Rankin, Sven Regener, Juli Zeh, FM Einheit of Einstürzende Neubauten to Austria's Capital. Under Stimeder's stewardship DATUM won numerous international and national awards for its stories and design.^[8] In September 2005 it was named "International best news magazine" by Tyler Brûlé in his column "Fast lane" in the Financial Times in 2005.^[9] In August 2008 he was named "Head of the Best School for Young Writers in the Country" by trade publication "The Journalist".^[10] Stimeder was the first and remains the only journalist who has done a face-to-face interview^[11] with Mahmoud Mohamed, who went on to become Austria's most notorious Jihadist.^[12]

In 2008 he published "Despite Everything: The Oscar Bronner Story", a biography he co-authored with Eva Weissenberger. "Despite" covers the life of Austro-Jewish entrepreneur Oscar Bronner who founded the magazines Profil and trend and daily Der Standard while also achieving moderate success as a painter. The book was critically acclaimed in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and the US ^[13] with its New York presentation hosted by Carl Bernstein^[14].

Between 2000 and 2009 Stimeder appeared as a regular guest on Austrian cable and network TV and on Al-Jazeera and the BBC's television and radio programmes. After turning down an offer to host his own political talk show at basic cable channel ATV^[15] Stimeder left Vienna and moved to Berlin. In 2010 he sold his shares in Datum and moved to the US where he lives and works as a writer of non-fiction and fiction under the name JM Stim.^[16]

Since 2000 Stim has served as a guest speaker and lecturer at schools, colleges and universities across North America (i.e. at the Columbia University chapter of St. Anthony Hall, NYU,^[17] Northwestern University, DePaul University, University of Minnesota,^[18] Ottawa University^[19]).

In 2011 Stim published "Here is Berlin",^[20] a book-length essay on the German capital that has been translated into four languages.^[21] The book received positive reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, following a tour^[22] of the US,^[23] Canada, Germany, Austria and Spain.^[24][25][26] (with Tim Mohr, who wrote the introduction to the first edition).

In 2013 Stim published the English translation of his Oscar Bronner biography.^[27] It was presented at a panel discussion in New York. Participants included Stim, writer Frederic Morton, editor David S. Benjamin and Harper's Magazine President John R. MacArthur. ^[28]

Stim's most recent publication "Stories 1995-2015" ^[29][30][31] is an anthology of his journalistic works from two decades. The introduction was written by German journalist Michael Frank and its cover drawn by comic artist Nicolas Mahler. American author Eric Jarosinski (aka internet phenomenon Nein Quarterly) named "Stories" his "Book of the Year" in 2015.^[32]

Publications

• Stories 1995-2015, redelsteiner dahimene edition, Vienna 2015, ISBN 978-3-9503359-8-9
• Despite Everything: The Oscar Bronner Story,^[33] ASIN: B00CS2IO6A, ebook. German Version: Trotzdem. Die Oscar-Bronner-Story (mit Eva Weissenberger), Ueberreuter, Vienna, 2008, ISBN 3-8000-3888-9
• The Original Kings Of Comedy, in: Andreas Ungerböck und Gunnar Landsgesell (Hg.): Spike Lee. Bertz + Fischer, Vienna, 2006, ISBN 3-929470-87-X
• Pushing an elephant up the stairs, in: Christl, Reinhard: Wie werde ich Journalist/in? Wege in den Traumberuf, LIT, Vienna, 2007, ISBN 3-8258-0466-6
• Here is Berlin, Rokko’s Adventures, New York-Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-200-02476-2

References

External links

• Official website (in German)