ERICH SCHWARTZEL is a journalist and author in Los Angeles. Schwartzel’s first book, Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, was published in 2022 and detailed the influence of China on America’s entertainment industry. Red Carpet was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, called a “page-turner” by Foreign Affairs, and named one of the best books ever written about Hollywood by Esquire. With Red Carpet, Schwartzel was part of the class of authors at the 2023 Sun Valley Writers’ Conference. Since 2013, Schwartzel has worked at The Wall Street Journal, where he is an enterprise reporter. He joined the Journal after four years at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where his work won the Scripps Howard Award for Environmental Reporting. He grew up in Latrobe, Penn., and got his start in journalism writing the police blotter for his hometown paper.

Photo credit – Leigh Keily