- Doug Merlino
-
Doug Merlino is an American author and journalist.
Contents
Personal History
Merlino grew up in Seattle, Washington and attended the Lakeside School.[1] He studied government at Claremont McKenna College[2] in Los Angeles, and received graduate degrees in journalism and international affairs from the University of California, Berkeley.[3] He lived in Budapest, Hungary, where he worked as an editor at the Budapest Business Journal.[4] He is married and now lives in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City.[5]
Professional Work
Merlino has worked for publications including Slate, Wired, Men's Journal, the Budapest Business Journal, and the Seattle Times.[6] He reported on post-genocide reconciliation in Rwanda for the PBS show Frontline/World.[7]
Merlino's first book, The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White,[8] was published by Bloomsbury USA in January 2011. The nonfiction book tells the story of a basketball team that Merlino played on as a 14-year-old in the 1986.[9] The team, an integration experiment, mixed privileged white players from Merlino's private school with African-American kids from Seattle's Central Area. The boys won an AAU championship that season, and the organizers began a program to enroll some of the black players in private schools.[10]
Several years later Merlino learned that Tyrell Johnson, one of his African-American teammates, had been murdered and dismembered.[11] This spurred him to track down the remaining players to find out what happened to them, and how they looked back at their team. They include a hedge fund manager, a Pentecostal preacher, a prosecutor, a frequently incarcerated cocaine addict, a winemaker, and a street hustler.[12][13] The resulting book tells the story of these individuals, but also focuses on the shifting dynamics of race and class, manhood, education and gentrification over the last thirty years.[14] Many of the players and coaches from the team reunited in January 2011 for a televised panel discussion that coincided with the release of the book.[15]
Awards
Merlino received the 2011 Washington State Book Award in Biography/Memoir for The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White.[16]
References
- ^ Westneat, Danny. "A Courtside Seat to an Experiment in the Elusive Goal of Integration." Seattle Times. January 1, 2011. "[1]" Retrieved April 16, 2011.
- ^ "Musical Tea." The Fortnightly, Claremont McKenna College. January 20, 1992. "[2]" Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ "Official website". http://dougmerlino.net/bio/.
- ^ Merlino, Doug. "Mass Media for a Minority." Central Europe Review. October 18, 2002. "[3]" Retrieved April 16, 2011.
- ^ "Official website". http://dougmerlino.net/bio/.
- ^ "Official website". http://dougmerlino.net/bio/.
- ^ Merlino, Doug. "After the Genocide." Frontline/World. December 2003. "[4]" Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ Merlino, Doug (2011). The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA. pp. 320. ISBN 9781608192151.
- ^ "Book Review: The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White." Kirkus. October 1, 2010. "[5]" Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ Morrison, Douglas. "The Novel Road Interview: Doug Merlino." The Novel Road. February 11, 2011. "[6]" Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ Westneat, Danny. "A Courtside Seat to an Experiment in the Elusive Goal of Integration." Seattle Times. January 1, 2011. "[7]" Retrieved April 16, 2011.
- ^ Lightfoot, Judy (March 31, 2001). "A Captivating Hustle". Crosscut.com. http://crosscut.com/2011/03/31/seattle/20768/A-captivating--Hustle-/. Retrieved August 20, 2011.
- ^ Merlino, Doug (2011). The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White. New York, NY: Bloomsbury USA. pp. 320. ISBN 9781608192151.
- ^ Tjarks, Jonathan. "Book Review: Doug Merlino's 'The Hustle.'" Open Salon. March 5, 2001. "[8]" Retrieved April 17, 2011.
- ^ "Town Square: One Team and Ten Lives". Seattle Channel. January 27, 2011. http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=5211102. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
- ^ Gwinn, Mary Ann. "2011 Washington State Book Award Winners". The Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2016209134_bookawards15.html. Retrieved 16 September 2011.
External links
Categories:- American writers
- American journalists
- Writers from New York City
- Living people
- Claremont McKenna College alumni
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- Writers from Seattle, Washington
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