Author Archives: Jim Merkel

Mischelle Leahy of Reedy Press interviewed me about Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. You can buy a copy by clicking here.  

Growing Up St. Louis author Jim Merkel ponders what kids today will tell their grandkids about coronavrus.

Copies of Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades came into the Reedy Press warehouse on March 26, 2020,. That’s 1,159 days (three years, two months and four days after I turned in a proposal to Reedy Press Publisher Josh Stevens. It wast worth waiting for. It’s not going to take you thatContinue reading “The books are in, and they look great”

The waiting soon will be over. On Friday, I’m told, we’ll get real copies of Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. We’ll have a chance to look at what I got from interviews of  more than 100 people about their experiences growing up here. When you add the transcribing, writing, rewriting, changesContinue reading “The book is almost here”

I wonder what kids today will remember about COVID-19 half a century from now. From what I discovered in writing Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades, their memories should be vivid and fairly accurate. I interviewed a couple of experts about remembering things, and they talked about something called “flashbulb memory.” PeopleContinue reading “How will they look back at the virus?”

For months, I and many others were looking forward to the big April 11 Launch Event for my new book, Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. We hoped to pack the 250 seats of the auditorium at the Central Library downtown. But then came the COVID-19 health emergency, and the library canceledContinue reading “The virus can’t keep us down”

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After more than three years’ work, Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades  will be out in a month. Officially, the release date is April 1. Unofficially, I’ve been told, it may show up at bookstores a week or two early. I think you’ll like how the snippets of my interviews of moreContinue reading “‘Growing Up St. Louis’ is almost here”

All but seven of the stories in Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades came from interviews. The seven that didn’t were from written accounts of the first two decades of the 20th Century. We did that because we wanted to include kids right after 1900, and nobody’s around anymore who remembers thatContinue reading “Sizzling Writing in Growing Up St. Louis”

  Some exciting stuff is ahead, as we move toward the launch event for Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades.  Steve Potter, a veteran of the local broadcasting scene, will host the launch event at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 11 in the auditorium of the St. Louis Public Library’s Central Library atContinue reading “Steve Potter named to emcee “Growing Up St. Louis” Launch”