2011 Writer of the Year— MICHAEL SCOTT ELDREDGE

Mike was born in Ogden, Utah, and received his B.A. degree in Political Science and History at Weber State College in 1971. He received an M.A. degree in Political Science with a Certificate in International Relations from Utah State University in 1972.

Mike was commissioned as a Naval Officer in 1971, and was assigned as Communications Officer, and as Operations Officer in USS SAN BERNARDINO (LST-1189). He was a part of the last Amphibious Ready Group to deploy to Vietnam. Mike was next assigned as an Assistant Professor to the NROTC Department at UCLA in 1976, where he was also responsible for historical and political curriculum development for over 54 colleges and universities in the United States. He also served as an instructor at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD in 1976 and 1977.

Mike resigned his commission in 1977 and returned home to Utah to attend law school. He received his Juris Doctor Degree from J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University in 1980. During his legal education he was awarded the Silver Key Award by the Law Student Division of the American Bar Association for his editorship of the 10th Circuit Law Student Division Newsletter.

Mike began his writing career while still in the Navy, publishing his first article “The Other Side of the Island; USS Utah at Pearl Harbor,” in the prestigious Naval publication, United States Naval Institute Proceedings in December, 1976. The following year he published another article, “A Battleship for Utah; Naval Tradition under Governor Spry,” in the Utah Historical Quarterly in the Summer Issue of 1977. He continued writing while in law school, first with the Journal of Legal Studies, which he was invited to join in 1978 because of his writing background. His first effort was “Administrative Relief from Zoning Ordinances,” that was published in the Summary of Utah Law: Land Use, Zoning and Eminent Domain, a book published by the BYU Journal of Legal Studies in 1979. Mike was promoted to editor in 1979, and he helped produce a second book entitled Summary of Utah Family Law published by the Journal of Legal Studies in 1980. He was also editor on the ABA/LSD Tenth Circuit Newsletter and editor of The Clark Memorandum, a BYU Alumni Magazine, in which he authored “Franklin S. Richards: Attorney In Crisis,” in the April1980 issue. After a six year hiatus while Mike was building his law practice, he again returned to publishing, this time in a two part series “Automating a Law Office with PCs,” published in October and December of 1986 in the Utah Lawyer Alert (predecessor to the Utah Bar Journal). Mike has published four books to date: Shades of Gray: Memoirs of a Prussian Saint on the Eastern Front, which he coauthored with Arthur O. Naujoks Jr.; My Life and the Winter Games: A Volunteer’s Story, Walker’s Promise, a novel set in Kamas, Utah in 1942, all of which were awarded the League of Utah Writers Quill Award. Ahriman’s Light was his fourth book, an historical novel dealing with the Spear of Destiny, and its return to Austria in the winter of 1946. It won the 2006 Hollywood Book Festival “Unpublished Manuscript” category. The Hollywood Book Festival gives awards for manuscripts best suited for screenplays. He released both Ahriman’s Light and Walkers Promise as eBooks in 2011.

In 1992 Mike founded Mill Creek Press with the intention of taking his love of books to the next level, publishing. In 2003 he altered the business model of Mill Creek Press to focus on Print on Demand and Print Quantity Needed technology. Although relatively new, this technology is showing promising signs of gaining a foothold in the Utah and Western United States markets. From 2003 to the present, he published 22 books. Mike also served as president of the League of Utah Writers for the year 2009-10, and in 2011 he was awarded Writer of the Year by the League.

Mike is an instructor at the University of Phoenix where he teaches undergraduate history and political science courses, and graduate international business courses in the MBA program.

Mike is active in civic and community affairs, and served as a volunteer leader in the Boy Scouts of America for over 30 years. He also served as a volunteer for Special Olympics and served as a volunteer for the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Mike resides with his wife Michelle in Salt Lake City, Utah. They have four sons and four daughters, all of whom are adults, and twelve grandchildren.