Jerrold Mundis



Jerrold J. Mundis (March 3, 1941 – April 4, 2020) was an American author, speaker, and counselor. He wrote on healthy personal money management, including topics like debt reduction and income growth. Mundis taught professional and avocational writing and wrote a book about writer's block.

Early life
Mundis was born March 3, 1941, in Chicago, Illinois. He was the son of Dolores Mundis of Bethesda, Maryland, and James M. Mundis, Kansas native and WWII Navy veteran. His father was a journalist and public relations director who worked for AT&T as its director of news and public relations before retiring in the early 1980s. His father began his career with the Chicago Herald Examiner in the late 1930s after graduating from the University of Kansas and later was a journalism instructor at Northwestern University, then an editor and writer of The Official Detective Magazine. After working as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, he joined Illinois Bell as the phone company's news and public relations specialist, moving to Washington in 1962 to work for AT&T. He was a member of the National Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. Jerrold was the middle child between his two siblings, Tom of Portola Valley, Calif., and Donna Field of Naples, Fla.

Mundis attended Beloit College from 1959 through 1961. In 1963, he received a B.A. from New York University. He married and helped raise two sons in the Catskills then moved to Greenwich Village in New York City.

Career
Mundis went on to become an editor at The New York Times.

Non-Fiction and Novels
The author wrote both fiction and non-fiction, including ghostwritten books, and some 100 short stories, essays, and articles in publications such as the New York Times Magazine, Harper's Weekly and American Heritage.

Mundis is most known for his 13 books of nonfiction, particularly, How To Get Out Of Debt, Stay Out Of Debt & Live Prosperously, Earn what You Deserve: How to Stop Underearning & Start Thriving, and Making Peace With Money.

In his book Earn What You Deserve, a book on under-earning, he provides an approach to compulsive behavior regarding spending and handling financial matters beginning with "three cardinal rules: do not incur debt, do not take work that pays less than you require and do not say 'no' to money."

Mundis also wrote 17 novels, including Gerhardt's Children. described by The New York Times as "a tricky narrative to bring off, involving as it does many centrifugal lives, but Mr. Mundis brings it off." He wrote under his name as well as several pseudonyms.

Under the pseudonym Eric Corder, Mundis wrote his Shame and Glory saga about the American slave trade. The saga included the books, Slave Ship, Slave, The Long Tattoo, Hell Bottom, and Running Dogs. As Corder, he also wrote a non-fiction book, Prelude to Civil War: Kansas-Missouri, 1854-61 recounting the Bleeding Kansas affair from both the Pro-slavery and Free Soil points of view, beginning with the famous Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. As Julia Withers, Mundis wrote Echo in a Dark Wind, a neo-gothic novel published in 1966.

His novel The Dogs, written under the pseudonym Robert Calder was the subject of an interview by Terry Gross on Fresh Air May 26, 1976. Several other works by Mundis about canines include ghost-written training books about "a celebrated collie" (Lassie). He also wrote The Dog Book, featuring writing by Doris Lessing, E.B. White, Edward Hoagland, William Cowper, John Burroughs, and John Steinbeck.

His work also includes the drama King of the Ice Cream Mountain, a one-act play for children., co-written with a partner in 1968.

Public Speaking
Mundis spoke regularly on debt and personal money for many professional societies and associations, including such organizations as the US Customs and Border Protection to the National Education Association, Unity Church. A recovered "debtor" himself, he was intimately familiar with the success of the Debtors Anonymous program.

Recognition and awards
Mundis was a member of the Authors Guild, PEN American Center, and Poets & Writers. He was listed in Contemporary Authors and the Directory of American Poets & Fiction Writers. Some of his books were selected for The Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild, and the One Spirit Book Club.

Under his Robert Calder persona, Mundis won a Dog Writers Association of America award in 1977 for The Dogs. The Chicago Tribune once said of him, "One day Calder is Julia Withers, Gothic novelist the next, he's Eric Corder, black historian or Franklin W. Dixon, one of the writers who penned Hardy Boy serials. He's also Jack Lancer, creator of Chris Cool, Teen Agent."

With his focus on "gaining happier relationships with money" as a writer and public speaker, he was internationally recognized in Debtors Anonymous' 12-step Fellowship (founded in 1971) for helping others and introducing them to the recovery movement. Mundis framed the societal problem as, “Discussion of personal finances, particularly indebtedness, maybe the last American taboo.” He pinpointed the issue for the individual suffering from compulsive debt saying, “Admitting the problem is essential...being willing to face facts...” with the caveat “denial is nearly universal.”

Death
Mundis died from complications of COVID-19 in Manhattan, on April 4, 2020, at the age of 79.