Murray Dubin

Author of three books, Murray Dubin grew up in South Philadelphia, son of a newsstand manager. Not quick enough (or talented enough) to play professional basketball, he, instead, began working at the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1971, remaining there for 34 years as a reporter, editor and national correspondent based in Los Angeles. In 1986, while the newspaper was shut down due to a strike and he was living without an income in Pasadena, he wrote "The Official Book of Wallyball," a sports instruction book for a new sport that needed no such book. In 1996, he wrote "South Philadelphia: Mummers, Memories and the Melrose Diner," and in 2010, he co-authored "Tasting Freedom: Octavius Catto and the Battle for Equality in Civil War America."

"Tasting Freedom" was seven-year obsession, a tale of the civil rights movement in the 19th century and its African American leaders, most of whom have been forgotten.

He is now working on a new book, historical fiction in the 1840s based on a true story about insanity, murder, the law, and a writer by the name of Poe.