Jeffrey Zaslow, the West Bloomfield-based author who wrote best-sellers such as "The Last Lecture” about a professor dying of pancreatic cancer and a recent book on U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ recovery from a gunshot wound to the head, was killed Friday in a car accident in northern Michigan. 
 
 
 
 Mr. Zaslow, 53, was a Philadelphia native who was married to Sherry Margolis, a Fox 2 Detroit news anchor since 1987, and the father of three daughters. 
 
 
 
 Fox 2 Detroit confirmed Zaslow’s death late this afternoon. 
 
 
 
 The station said Zaslow was killed in auto accident in northern Michigan, according to the Antrim County Sheriff’s Department. It happened around 9 a.m. on M-32, near Elmira. Police said Zaslow lost control of his car and was hit by a semi-truck on a snow-covered road. He had been in Petoskey previously for a book-signing. 
 
 
 
 Supremely outgoing and equally self-deprecating, Zaslow had a knack for ferreting out details that riveted a reader. He wrote books that inspired millions, unleashing the insight of Randy Pausch, the computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon whose lecture about dying from pancreatic cancer and achieving childhood fantasies became “The Last Lecture” (Hyperion, $21.95) in 2008. Another book, “The Girls from Ames” about 11 childhood friends in Iowa and their bonds while growing up, also became a bestseller. 
 
 
 
 Zaslow also profiled Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who successfully landed a distressed airliner full of passengers on the Hudson River in New York in "Highest Duty" (William Morrow, $25.99). Last year, he also documented the saga of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswoman, as she recovered from a bullet wound to the brain after a gunman shot her and killed six others. Along with Giffords' husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, Zaslow coauthored "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope" (Scribner, $26.99). 
 
 
 
 He first shot to notoriety when, as a Wall Street Journal reporter writing about a national contest to replace Ann Landers, ended up winning the contest to become her replacement at the Chicago Sun-Times. He currently was writing a column about relationships for the Wall Street Journal 
 
 
 
 His latest book is “The Magic Room,” the chronicle of what transpires at Becker’s Bridal in Fowler, near Lansing, a bridal store with nearly 2,500 dresses, owned and operated by fourth-generation bridal shop owner Shelley Becker Mueller. 
 
 
 
 He followed eight brides, including one who had her first kiss the day she became engaged and a widow who found love again, from the bridal store to the wedding altar. And he chronicled the ups-and-downs of the store owner, whose marriage failed. 
 
 
 
 "It's like sitting down with a brother, " Becker Mueller told the Free Press for a story about the book and how she allowed Zaslow to park himself for days while eavesdropping on conversations and searching for brides-to-be with compelling tales. "He's very comfortable to be around. And there was never a feeling that ‘I can't answer this' when he asked a question." 
 
 
 
 Zaslow said the love he has for his own three daughters, Jordan, 22; Alex, 20, and Eden, 16; was the inspiration for “The Magic Room.” 
 
 
 
 In an interview televised last week with Fox 2 Detroit, Zaslow described why he wrote “The Magic Room.” 
 
 
 
 “I realized when I was there. One bride she went in there. She tried on a dress. She looked great, then she left the store and 12 hours later she was in a car accident. She lost fingers on one hand. Her fiancé stood by her,” said Zaslow. “Just to chronicle those kind of stories was very moving to me. And I realized from being in that store, my job as a father is not to tell my daughters what dress to wear, not to tell them what to do. My job is to tell my girls I love them. And Sherry, that I love her, too, obviously.” 
 
 
 
 He said he learned from Prof. Randy Pausch to take more moments with his daughters. When “The Last Lecture” came out, Zaslow said he would email Pausch with links to stories about him popping up on the web. 
 
 
 
 Zaslow said Pausch emailed him back: “Will you stop googling my name and go hug your kids.”. 
 
 
 
 “And when I hug my kids now, what a gift it is to be able to do that. And that’s sort of the story I’m telling in this book,” said Zaslow, “which is we’ve got to hug our kids and make the most of each moment, because you never know.” ||||| Wall Street Journal reporter Jeffrey Zaslow was tragically killed in an automobile accident on Friday. Kelsey Hubbard spoke to Deputy Managing Editor Mike Miller about the beloved journalist, whose work touched and inspired millions of people around the world. 
 
 Jeffrey Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer and best-selling author with a rare gift for writing about love, loss, and other life passages with humor and empathy, died at age 53 on Friday of injuries suffered in a car crash in northern Michigan. 
 
 He died after losing control of his car while driving on a snowy road and colliding with a truck, according to his wife and the Antrim County Sheriff's Office. The condition of the truck driver wasn't available. 
 
 McLean & Eakin Booksellers Jeffrey Zaslow giving his last lecture Thursday night in Michigan. 
 
 In addition to writing hundreds of memorable Journal articles and columns, Mr. Zaslow did a long stint as an advice columnist at the Chicago Sun-Times, succeeding Ann Landers—a job he won after he entered a competition for the position as an angle for a Journal front-page feature. 
 
 At the Journal his subjects ranged from the anguish of losing a car in the Disney World parking lot, to the power of fathers' lunchbox letters to their daughters, to the distinctive pain of watching a beloved childhood stadium go under the wrecking ball. 
 
 Auditioning for Ann Landers's Job Dear Jeffrey: Take Our Advice, Stick to Reporting 3/25/1987 
 
 More recently, he became one of America's best-selling nonfiction writers, known internationally for such books as "The Girls from Ames," the story of a 40-year friendship among 10 women, and "The Last Lecture," about Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor who in 2007 was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given only a few months to live. 
 
 After Mr. Pausch gave an inspirational multimedia presentation about his life's lessons, Mr. Zaslow—a 1980 Carnegie Mellon graduate—wrote a Journal column about the lecture and posted it on the Journal's website with a video that became an online sensation. The resulting book spent more than a year on best-seller lists and was translated into dozens of languages. 
 
 He was twice named best columnist by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and in 2000 he received its Will Rogers Humanitarian Award. 
 
 In a statement Friday to the staff of the Journal, editor Robert Thomson said: "Jeff's writing, for the Journal and in his books, has been a source of inspiration for many people around the world and his journalistic life has been a source of inspiration for all journalists." 
 
 In 2011, he collaborated with Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, on their memoir, "Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope," following the congresswoman's shooting. He is also the author of "Highest Duty," about the airline captain Chesley Sullenberger, who safely landed a damaged jetliner in the Hudson River in New York. 
 
 "Over the last year we got to know and appreciate the talented and caring professional that Jeff was. He was one of a kind and we feel very fortunate for the time we had with him," Mr. Kelly wrote in an email to the Journal Friday. "He touched so many lives in such a positive way. Gabby and I express our deepest condolences to his wife Sherry Margolis and their three daughters - Jordan, Alex and Eden. We will miss Jeff very much." 
 
 His latest, "The Magic Room: A Story About the Love We Wish for our Daughters," is set in a Fowler, Mich., bridal store where he looked at American weddings. "I found a place with an awful lot of emotion. And I have been writing books with emotion for all these years so I was just grateful to find this place," he told an interviewer. 
 
 A native of the Philadelphia suburb of Broomall, Mr. Zaslow majored in creative writing in college. 
 
 The Giffords book 
 
 In a 2006 feature, Mr. Zaslow wrote about how the rise of iPods meant that everyone could walk around with a personal soundtrack, so he set about creating one for a day in his own life—including a "scene" with his wife, Sherry Margolis. "Aware of my soundtrack project in recent weeks, Sherry wondered what music I'd pick as a tribute to her," he wrote. "No, I didn't choose 'Wind Beneath My Wings' or the 'Jaws' theme. I finally selected Orleans's bouncy 1976 hit, 'Still the One.' Because she is." 
 
 In addition to being an accomplished stylist, Mr. Zaslow reported his stories in exemplary depth. For "The Last Lecture" he spent weeks talking to Mr. Pausch. 
 
 "Randy would spend an hour each morning on a stationary bike to try to keep himself fit, and in that hour he'd be on the phone with Jeff," said Robert Miller, who was president of Walt Disney Co.'s Hyperion book-publishing unit when the title was published in 2008. "They never missed a day." But, added Mr. Miller, "He was mindful of Randy's time, because Randy didn't have much left." 
 
 Mr. Pausch's sister, Tamara Pausch Mason, said Mr. Zaslow learned so much about her brother and his childhood that he became a "vicarious member of the family" who knew all the family's stories and stayed in close contact with them after Mr. Pausch died. 
 
 During the period in his career when he wrote the advice column, Mr. Zaslow received many letters from people who were lonely—which became the inspiration for the Zazz Bash, an annual party at Chicago's Navy Pier. Thousands would attend. Hot dogs and chips were piled up on tables for singles looking for love. "He got these letters from lonely people and, being Jeff, he thought he should do something. So he orchestrated this enormous party for them," said Neil Steinberg, a longtime friend of Mr. Zaslow's and a columnist at the Sun-Times. 
 
 Mr. Zaslow is survived by his wife, who is an anchor at a Fox television station in Detroit; three daughters, Jordan, Alex and Eden; and his parents, Harry and Naomi Zaslow. Mr. Zaslow adorned his cubicle in the Journal's Detroit bureau with dozens of photos of his wife and girls. 
 
 Journal colleagues recalled that while working on columns and books, Mr. Zaslow would collect voluminous notes that he organized in piles that spilled off his desk, sat in uneven rows around his chair and cluttered an empty cubicle adjacent to his. When he took his work home at night, he packed his notes into a wheeled carry-on suitcase. 
 
 Arrangements for Mr. Zaslow will be handled by Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, Mich. No details were yet available. 
 
 —Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Jack Nicas contributed to this article. 
 
 Write to Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com 
 
 A version of this article appeared February 11, 2012, on page A6 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Journal Columnist Jeffrey Zaslow Dies at 53.
– Author and newspaper columnist Jeffrey Zaslow is dead at age 53 after a car accident in Michigan today, reports the Detroit Free Press and Wall Street Journal. Zaslow is perhaps best known for his book Last Lecture, about the final lecture of the late Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, but he first gained fame in the late 1980s as a writer for the Journal. He wrote a first-person article about the Chicago Sun-Times' search for a replacement for Ann Landers—and ended up getting the job himself over 12,000 applicants. He wrote the advice column until 2001. Zaslow, who had returned to the Journal as a columnist, also co-authored the recent biography of Gabrielle Giffords (Gabby) and wrote a bio of Hudson River hero Sully Sullenberger (Highest Duty). The Free Press recounts Zaslow talking about Pausch's advice to him to hug his three daughters. “What a gift it is to be able to do that. And that’s sort of the story I’m telling in this book,” Zaslow said of his latest, The Magic Room. "We’ve got to hug our kids and make the most of each moment, because you never know.”