Neil Steinberg

Neil Steinberg (born June 10, 1960 ) is an American news columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and an author. He joined the paper's staff in 1987.

Steinberg has written for a wide variety of publications, including Esquire, The Washington Post, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Details, Men's Journal, National Lampoon and Spy. He has also written for web sites, including Salon and Forbes.com. in Ohio and raised in Berea, Ohio. He moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University from where he graduated in 1982 with a journalism degree. He returned to the Chicago area, where he freelanced and began his journalism career in Chicago's suburbs, working for the Barrington Courier-Review. He authored the column using the nom de plume Ed Gold, a name he also used for the Readers "True Books" column.

In 2005, Steinberg began writing columns on the side for the New York Daily News.

After his arrest for domestic abuse in 2005, Steinberg was dropped from the Sun-Times''' editorial board but added a fourth column per week.

In June 2013, Steinberg's column in the Sun-Times was cut from four days a week to one. Crain's Chicago Business reported that the move came after a controversial column by Steinberg that then-Sun-Times Editor Jim Kirk had criticized for reading like an ad for a car time-share company.

Obituary writing

At the Sun-Times, Steinberg has specialized in writing obituaries of important figures. He is a member of the Society of Professional Obituary Writers.

In 2018, an advance obituary written by Steinberg about Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis briefly was erroneously published online due to a production glitch. Lewis subsequently told the Chicago Tribune that "I am not dead" and that "I thought it was hilarious -- stuff happens." Lewis added that she was touched by Steinberg's first line: "Karen Lewis was fearless." )

Blogging

In July 2013, Steinberg created his own blog to highlight his writing apart from the Sun-Times, called everygoddamnday.com.

In 2005, Steinberg was charged with domestic battery for slapping his wife as she tried to call 9-1-1 to report abuse. Steinberg subsequently wrote about the arrest in the Sun-Times, writing that while drunk at his home in September, he had slapped his wife: "She called the cops, they came, clapped me into handcuffs and hauled me off to jail. When I asked her later why she had to have me arrested, she said, 'Nobody hits me, buddy.'" Steinberg responded by noting that "The difference between my past and hers is that I have done the hard work to change myself, while she remains exactly what she was, alas. If a person cannot tolerate one teasing column, how can she hope to be mayor of a great city?" Drunkard (2008) You Were Never in Chicago (2012) Out of the Wreck I Rise: A Literary Companion to Recovery'' (2016) written with Sara Bader

Essays and reporting