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. 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. 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. 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. 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). 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. 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.
– 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.”