Scott Martelle

author/journalist

A look at a pivotal year

Inauguration Day March 4, 1933, a trip from the White House to the Capitol that must have felt much longer to Hoover than it did to FDR.

I'm at work on a book that takes a look at a pivotal year in 20th Century American history, with the working title: 1932: FDR, Hoover, and the Dawn of a New America, which should be out in 2023 through Kensington Books' Citadel imprint.

Of course, research is a challenge here in Spring of 2021, with the Covid-19 pandemic keeping key archives and libraries shuttered. Wish me luck!

I'm a veteran journalist and former member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board from 2014-2021. Prior to that I worked freelance and was a staff writer for the LA Times where, among other assignments, I covered presidential political campaigns. Other previous staff jobs included the Jamestown (N.Y.) Post-Journal, Rochester (N.Y.) Times-Union and The Detroit News.

A third-generation journalist, I was born in Scarborough, Maine, and grew up there and in Wellsville, New York, about two hours south of Buffalo. My first newspaper job came aroud age 16, writing a high school sports column for the Wellsville Patriot, a weekly, then covering local news part-time for the Wellsville Daily Reporter. I'm a graduate of the State University College at Fredonia, where I was editor of The Leader newspaper and news director for WCVF campus radio.

My journalism has also appeared in the Washington Post, Sierra Magazine, Los Angeles magazine, Orange Coast magazine, New York Times Book Review (books in brief), Buffalo News, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Teaching Tolerance (Southern Poverty Law Center), Solidarity (United Auto Workers) and elsewhere.

I have taught journalism courses at Chapman University and UC Irvine, and speak occasionally at school and college classes about journalism, politics and writing. I've appeared on panels at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and the Literary Orange festival, moderated panels at the Nieman Conference in Narrative Journalism and the North American Labor History Conference, among others, and been featured on C-SPAN's Book TV.