Mystery Writers who work(ed) in Advertising

[Meredith Anthony]

Penny Randolph sent me a note about not being surprised to find that a mystery writer worked in the advertising industry. It made me start thinking.

How many writers can we think of who currently or previously worked in the ad biz?

Meredith Anthony
James Patterson
Chris Grabenstein
Penny Rudolph

Send in your entries, please. Let's see how many we can get.

Rule: must have worked for an Ad Agency -- not just in journalism or marketing or freelance or self-employed...

[J.D. Rhoades]

David Terrenoire

[Naomi Hirahara]

Louise Ure (she helped to develop the California Raisin campaign!)

[Dave Zeltserman]

One of the best--Ed Gorman

[Karen J. Laubenstein]

Hi Meredith -

Charles Benoit (copywriter Dixon Schwabl Advertising)
Marion Moore Hill (ad copywriter)
Chris Knopf (Mintz & Hoke Communications Group)
Tim Maleeny

[Karyn J. Powers]

Libby Fischer Hellmann- (If PR can be rolled in w/advertising)

[Doug Wood]

I don't know if she had personal experience in advertising, but my favorite Dorothy L. Sayers novel is MURDER MUST ADVERTISE, set in a London ad agency.

[Naomi Hirahara]

Marcus Sakey

[David Terrenoire]

Tony Broadbent worked in advertising. Ray is right about Dutch Leonard and I think, although I'm not sure, Loren Estleman was a copywriter.

There have to be more. Working with clients and account executives makes one naturally turn to thoughts of homicide.

[Burl Barer]

Burl Barer (that's me) has worked in advertising forever -- but an AD AGENCY? C'mon -- my company was a creative service hired by advertising agencies to do the creative for which they took credit! We didn't place the buys, but we wrote and produced the spots for thew agencies' clients. I also owned a cable television advertising interconnect -- we wrote and produced hundred and hundreds of spots for TV and support campaigns on radio. Doesn't this count??


Burl

[Burl Barer]

PS -- I have awards from the Tri Cities Advertising Federation. That counts for something!

BB