Mark Merlis (March 9, 1950 – August 15, 2017 ^[1]) was an American writer and health policy analyst. ^{[2] [3]}

Biography

Born in Framingham, Massachusetts on March 9, 1950 and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, ^[2] Merlis attended Wesleyan University and Brown University. ^[2] He subsequently took a job with the Maryland Department of Health to support himself while writing. ^[2] In 1987, he took a job with the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress as a social legislation specialist, and was involved in the creation of the Ryan White Care Act. ^[2]

Beginning in the 1990s, Merlis published a series of novels. ^[2] His first novel, American Studies, was published in 1994 ^[4] and won the Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBT Literature and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction in 1995, ^[3] and his second, An Arrow's Flight, was published in 1998 ^[5] and won the 1999 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. ^[3] He published two further novels during his lifetime, Man About Town in 2003 ^[6] and JD in 2015. ^{[7] [8]}

Merlis lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and worked both as an author and an independent health policy consultant. ^[3]

Illness and death

Merlis died on August 15, 2017, at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia, from pneumonia associated with ALS. ^[1] He was sixty-seven years old. He is survived by his husband of many years, Robert Ashe. ^[3]

Works

• American Studies (1994)
• An Arrow's Flight (1998) - also published as Pyrrhus (1999)
• Man About Town (2003)
• JD (2015)

References

External links

• Mark Merlis