Al Pessin is a successful author of fiction, best known for his high-tension thriller, SANDBLAST. The book was published by Kensington Publishing Corp. in early 2020, after being shortlisted for the 2017 Bosque Fiction Award and finishing as a top-five selection in the 2018 Royal Palm Literary Awards. Pessin's short, short story, JIMMY’S HOUR, was also a finalist in the Royal Palm Literary Awards in 2018. His second book in the Task Force Epsilon series, BLOWBACK, was published in February 2021, and the third book, SHOCK WAVE, is scheduled for release in January 2022.
Pessin's to-the-point writing style and decades of frontline reporting have given him a unique voice in the thriller genre. He has covered U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, dined with anti-Soviet mujahedeen in Pakistan, interviewed Hamas militants in Gaza, and been a member of the White House and Pentagon press corps. Pessin's career as a foreign correspondent spanned fifteen years, with postings in Hong Kong, Islamabad, Beijing, Jerusalem, and London. In total, he spent thirty-nine years working as a TV/radio broadcaster, correspondent, editor, and manager at the Voice of America. His assignments have taken him to war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Eastern Ukraine, as well as to Tahrir Square in Cairo and Independence Square in Kyiv. He has also reported from Gaza, the West Bank, Eastern Turkey, the Philippines, and Southeast Asian refugee camps.
In 1989, the Chinese government expelled Pessin for "illegal news gathering" and "fomenting counter-revolutionary rebellion." That same year, he was awarded the Communicator of the Year Award from the National Association of Government Communicators and won a Gold Medal at the International Radio Festivals of New York. Pessin has also been an adjunct instructor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, where he taught a graduate course on national security journalism. He has spoken on China, journalism, and national security at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Virginia. For several years, Pessin was a member of the editorial board of the Foreign Service Journal. In 2016, he had a humor piece about the presidential election published on politico.com. His OpEds have also been published in the Los Angeles Times, thehill.com, and DefenseOne.com.
Pessin's two-act play, a farce called MURDER AT THE BUTCHER’S, was produced by a professional theater company in South Florida in 2019. He currently resides in Florida with his wife Audrey and their precocious Labrador, Rory, while working on the sequels to SANDBLAST.