Earl Merkel

Profile Information:

Hometown:

Chicago

About Me:

Earl Merkel is the author of The Law Of Unintended Consequences (Amazon Kindle Direct, 2015), Fallout (Diversion Books, 2015, Fire Of The Prophet (Diversion Books, 2013); Virgins And Martyrs (Five Star, under the name "E L Merkel"); Final Epidemic (Diversion Books - originally published by PenguinPutnam/NAL), a Barnes and Noble national bestseller; and Dirty Fire (Diversion Books - originally published by PenguinPutnam/NAL).

Earl spent more than a decade as a journalist, columnist and commentator; today, while he is a full-time novelist, he continues to contribute to a variety of newspapers and magazines— usually after their editors have had time to extinguish the reader-reaction brushfires from his previous submissions. He is also a talk-radio host & producer (currently, "The Book, With Earl Merkel", as well as an occasional guest of unwary shows on television, radio, and podcast.

During his career, Earl has dodged gunfire, teargas canisters, and verbal brickbats as a journalist (and on occasion as a private citizen, having somehow annoyed armed or vocal strangers); spent years "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable," as an investigative reporter, newspaper columnist and satirist; and as a consultant has advised some of the largest corporations in the world on the merits of open and honest communications — not always with success.

As the "more" on the nationally broadcast talk-radio program Money & More, where he served for nine years through 2012 as co-host and executive producer, Earl left the money-talk to the experts. He admits that he's far more comfortable in other areas —talking with authors like Lawrence Block, Ken Burns, Robin Cook and Neil Gaiman about their books; arguing current events and politics with such guests as Steve Forbes, Jack Welch, Dick Morris, Oliver North and Newt Gingrich; and even cracking-wise with the likes of Mark Steyn, Neal Cavuto and Michael Medved— than he is dealing with financial matters.

"In my own finances, I'm anything but a good example," he laughs. "But I'm a great bad example."

Earl is also the author of The Infamous Chicken Little Article, which is rumored to have gotten him temporarily banned from the op-ed page of a major American newspaper —but which subsequently has become an underground classic on the Internet among journalists, and which is regularly cited in journalism-school classes when a dose of cold (but —at least arguably— hilarious) reality is required.

As a ghostwriter, Earl has had books published by such major houses as Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins— without, he hopes, these houses ever knowing it.

I Am A:

Writer

Website:

http://www.earlmerkel.com

Books And Authors I Like:

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, by Harper Lee-- sheer genius.
Anything by James Lee Burke-- if the guy wrote a telephone directory, I'd read it.
Ditto for the Master, John D. MacDonald.
Ditto for Lawrence Block, especially in his Keller series.
Far too many contemporary authors (some of them friends) to list here. And if I'd forget to list any of 'em, I could inadvertently trigger a vendetta wherein the blood would run ankle-deep in the literary streets...

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