Caleb A. Mertz is a Pennsylvania native transplanted to San Diego California. In the past, he worked as a restaurant manager at Red Robin and later at Emeril Lagasse's first east coast restaurant, Emeril's Chop House, at what is now Wind Creek casino in Bethlehem Pa. Currently, Mertz is a PhD candidate in comparative literature at the University of California, San Diego.
His journey back to school began with the desire to write better and more engaging stories. He wanted to bring his characters to life on the page and for each of his stories to leave the reader both satisfied and changed in some small way. He's been writing since second grade with a quick book about how an evil elf stole Christmas by slipping Santa a pill and nearly killing him. He fell in love with the process of making the book (they used cereal boxes and wrapping paper to make the cover, and had peer editor teams for each book). He's inspired by authors such as Ernest Hemingway, James Baldwin, Walt Whitman, and David Baldacci.
