Jack Harpster retired in 2002 from the newspaper industry after 43 years. For the next two years, he wrote and published Las Vegas Perspective, which launched his second career as a writer. His first book, John Ogden, the Pilgrim (1605 – 1682): A Man of More Than Ordinary Mark, was published in 2006 by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press of New Jersey. He is also the author of Helping Hands, Helping Hearts which detailed the history of Opportunity Village. He is currently revising a book on the life of Chicago founder and early railroad pioneer William B. Ogden for another scholarly publisher; and has just completed a narrative non-fiction manuscript about a young Revolutionary War-era Iroquois captive.
Harpster lived in Las Vegas for twenty years, and currently resides in Reno with his wife Cathy.