About the Author

A native of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Larry Merris played high school football for Porter Tower High School  and honed his fledgling writing skills as sports reporter for the West Schuylkill Herald. After graduation, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served a tour of duty in Key West, Florida and Kenitra, Morocco, where he was trained and assigned four years as an air traffic controller. 

Always an avid reader and historian, Larry was fortunate to have two short stories published in a college literary journal in Key West. To this day, one of his favorite anecdotes revolves around a chance meeting with John Steinbeck in a Key West bar.

Larry is a Business and Marketing graduate of Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, and studied toward a Master’s Degree in Adult Education at Temple University. In the past forty years he has lived in various locations on the east coast, including Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington DC. His very first job was as an apprentice fingerprint analyst with the FBI.

Professionally Larry has held positions in sales, marketing and consulting with Verizon Communications and the former Van Heusen Company, and headed up fundraising efforts for a number of non-profits. He was the owner and CEO of his own media marketing group for more than nine years, during which time he also taught marketing courses for the Franklin and Marshall College Adult Education Program Evening Division.

Larry and Carol, his wife/editor, reside in Lancaster, Pennsylvania where Larry is an active Thirty-Second Degree Mason and volunteer consultant with SCORE, a sanctioned organization of retired business executives. Carol and Larry both enjoy travel and make regular trips to the south of France. Hawaii has been a repeated favorite destination, and they spend as much time as possible at their condo near the Delaware Shore.   

Now retired from the corporate world, Larry reserves most of his time for writing and research. His first novel, The Red Serpent, has been in the works for several years. He is presently working on his second and third novels. 








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