Michael Malone is an American author and television writer, born in Durham, North Carolina. He is best known for his work on the ABC Daytime dramaOne Life to Live, as well as for his novels Handling Sin, Foolscap, and murder mystery First Lady.
Career
Malone is well known for his stint writing the soap operaOne Life to Live. He was the serial's head writer after being hired by Linda Gottlieb from 1991 to 1996 and garnered critical acclaim for his storylines, which included a tale involving the tight bond between an ostracized homosexual teenager and a preacher, the creation of villain/rapist Todd Manning and the character's gang rape of Marty Saybrooke, as well as the subsequent rape trial. Entertainment Weekly wrote: "OLTL was airing some of the most literate drama ever to hit daytime—too good to be called 'soap opera.'" One Life to Live was averaging 5 million viewers when Malone left in 1996. His next soap opera writing job was with Another World in 1997. He returned to write One Life to Live from 2003 to 2004. While writing One Life to Live, Malone wrote a novel called The Killing Club, which was tied into the show. For months, viewers watched character Marcie Walsh write the book. The book was published in February 2005 with the authors listed as Marcie Walsh and Michael Malone. To explain this, Marcie said she took the book to "Professor Malone" at Llanview University, who helped her re-write it. After Malone's departure from the show, Dena Higley continued this storyline, as a copycat killer murdered characters on the show exactly as had occurred in the book. In its first week of publication The Killing Club went to #16 on The New York Times Best Seller list for Hardback Fiction. It later rose to #11.
Personal life
Malone currently lives in Hillsborough, N.C. with his wife, Maureen Quilligan, a professor of English at Duke University. He is a former board member and a supporter of the Burwell SchoolHistoric Site. Malone sets many of his stories in Piedmont, including First Lady and the other Justin & Cuddy novels, in his region of North Carolina.
Emmy Acceptance Speech: "There are a lot of us up here, but there are hundreds more that should be—other writers, the cast and crew, the producers and directors of One Life To Live—without you what we do would just be typing. And the wonderful ladies across the street at ABC-Mickey and Pat and Maxine Levinson and Barbara.. and two very extraordinary women-Linda Gottlieb, who had the amazing courage to hire all of us and to turn us loose in Llanview-thank you.....also, Agnes Nixon, who created the world that we live in... If Charles Dickens is the father of daytime, she's his daughter and we're very proud to be among her children. Thank you."
