John Pekkanen (born February 11, 1939, in Lyme, Connecticut) is an author,^[1] and two-time National Magazine Award-winning^[2][3] American journalist and the winner of ten other national journalism awards including the National Headliner Award, the Penney-Missouri Award for medical journalism,^[4] and the Award of Excellence from the American College of Emergency Physicians.^[5]

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A former correspondent and bureau chief for Life magazine and a senior writer for Washingtonian, Pekkanen has written for The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, Town and Country and is the author of Donor: How One Girl's Death Gave Life to Others; The Best Doctors in the U.S.; Victims: An Account of a Rape; The American Connection - Profiteering and Politicking in the "Ethical" Drug Industry;^[6] M. D.: Doctors Talk about Themselves; and My Father, My Son with Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and Lieutenant Elmo Zumwalt. He is also a published poet.

Pekkanen has been a Nieman Fellow^[7] at Harvard University. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area.