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Biography

THE BLOG:

Rogue Columnist focuses on sustainability, urban issues and politics in the Great Disruption that is our future. Phoenix and Arizona are a specialty.

THE WRITER:

Jon Talton is a journalist and author living in Seattle. He writes the “On the Economy” column and Sound Economy blog for the Seattle Times, and is editor and publisher of the blog Rogue Columnist. He also writes about urban issues, economics and sustainability for the Pew Center on the States and for Britannica Blog.

Jon is the author of seven novels, including the David Mapstone mysteries, among them "Concrete Desert," "Dry Heat" and "Cactus Heart." "Dry Heat" was named 2005 fiction book of the year by Arizona Highways magazine. His new novel is "The Pain Nurse," published by the Poisoned Pen Press.

For more than 25 years Jon has covered business and finance, specializing in urban economies, energy, real estate and economics and public policy. Jon was a columnist for the Arizona Republic, Charlotte Observer and Rocky Mountain News, and his columns have appeared in newspapers throughout North America on the New York Times News Service and other news services. Jon has been a regular guest on CNBC.

Jon also served as business editor for several newspapers, including the Dayton Daily News, Rocky Mountain News, Cincinnati Enquirer and Charlotte Observer. At Dayton, he was part of a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service, for the nation’s first computer-assisted report on worker safety. In Charlotte, the business section was honored as one of the nation’s best by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. Among the stories he covered were the landmark Texaco-Pennzoil trial; the collapse of energy prices in the 1980s; the troubles of General Motors and the American auto industry; the big bank mergers of the ‘90s, and America’s downtown renaissance. He was a Knight Western Fellow in Journalism at the University of Southern California and a community fellow at the Morrison Institute at Arizona State University.

Before journalism, he worked for four years as an ambulance medic in the inner city of Phoenix. He also was an instructor in theater at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.