Monday, July 7, 2008

Fiction, Photography, Animals, and Basketball: Exciting Author Interviews for July

Linda Villarosa

Passing for Black

Linda Villarosa has long used her writing to raise awareness. A journalist, editor and now a novelist, she's written about a variety of important subjects from LGBT issues, African-Americans and HIV, to parenting and health. In 1991, as the executive editor of Essence magazine, she co-wrote an article with her mother entitled "Coming Out." The article — about, you guessed it, how coming out affected Linda's relationship with her mother — received a record number of responses at that time in the magazine's history.

Villarosa is also the author or co-author of three books: Body & Soul: The Black Women's Guide to Physical Health and Emotional Well-Being, Finding Our Way: The Teen Girls' Survival Guide, and The Black ParentingBook. Dafina Books recently published her first novel, Passing for Black. The book follows Angela, a young black woman whose search for identity crosses lines of race, sexuality and family. Villarosa spoke with AfterEllen.com about the book, what inspired the novel and the challenges of using her skills as a journalist to write fiction. Read the rest of the interview here.

Monte Nagler

Michigan

Monte Nagler may have been a late bloomer in his photography career, but it just goes to show that talent and dreams are not limited by age. Nagler entered the realm of photography at age 30. Before that he had only dabbled in taking snapshots of his children for family photo albums. He initially attended the University of Michigan after growing up in Ann Arbor, earning his undergraduate degree in engineering and then received his master's in business administration. Nagler landed his first full-time job in Product Planning at Ford Motor Co. He spent his career working on concept cars. Once Nagler left Ford, he purchased two Midas muffler shops. Once he turned 30, he stumbled onto photography and immediately felt drawn to it.

Nagler said that throughout his life, he was always searching for a means of expressing himself and it became a nagging source of frustration for him up until he discovered photography. In 1979, he applied to an Ansel Adams workshop and was accepted. He traveled to Yosemite National Park where he studied under the renowned photographer who had a profound influence on his life. "Ansel was my inspiration. We saw each other on and off until he died in 1984," Nagler said, adding that during his 42nd year, he took a risky move and sold both muffler shops to dedicate his attention to photography full-time. It's been 26 years and Nagler now makes his living through his former hobby. Nagler attributes his international success, as well as innovative projects, to the efforts of his wife, Mickey, who now runs the photography business. She also started their business' new division, Photos for Healing, which poignantly captures subjects as a means of therapy to patients in hospitals across the United States.

Nagler has won numerous awards and has been internationally recognized as a premier photographer. He is also a member of the esteemed Camera Craftsmen of America, one of 40 members worldwide, and a member of the Fugifilm Talent Team. The state Senate and House have honored him with proclamations for his contributions to fine art photography. Nagler is a noted writer, lecturer and teacher of photography. Not only has he written a nationally syndicated photography column, but he is also the author of five highly successful photography books. Read more about Nagler's photography here.

Eric Schlosser

Fast Food Nation

The rising cost and shortages of food world-wide are putting a spotlight on the politics of what we eat.

And in Burlington this Saturday the topic will be explored further when Eric Schlosser joins Senator Bernie Sanders for a town hall meeting on sustainable agriculture and other food-related issues.

Schlosser is the author of the best-selling book Fast Food Nation,which exposed many of the unhealthy conditions in America's slaughterhouses. Schlosser says the problem with food supplies today is that they're controlled by a small number of large, centralized corporate interests.

Listen to the interview here.

David M. Armstrong

Rocky Mountain Mammals

New West: How did you first become interested in the mammals of this region?

David M. Armstrong: I grew up in Greeley and worked at Boy Scout Camps in Glen Haven and Red Feather Lakes. Usually I was involved with “nature hikes,” and I think my interest in mammals probably was solidified at this time. Also, at CSU I had a wonderful professor for “Mammalogy,” Dr. Bob Lechleitner. His enthusiasm for knowing the lives of native mammals was infectious.

NW: For how long have you been studying the animals in Rocky Mountain National Park?

DMA: Off and on informally as a visitor since I was a kid in the 1950s, and in recent decades as a frequent fieldtrip and workshop leader in the Park. Although I have done fieldwork for decades near the National Park on all sides, in a variety of habitats, my formal research in the National Park per se has been limited to an intensive three-year study of impacts on small mammals and their habitats of the Lawn Lake Flood of 1982.

NW: Have you noticed any changes in the park over the years?

DMA: The fauna of any place is a dynamic phenomenon, a “work-in-progress,” and changes are sometimes subtle. Obvious changes in recent decades have been the substantial increase in the number of elk in the National Park and vicinity, ups and downs in numbers (hence visibility) of bighorn sheep and beaver, the increase in the number of black bears in recent years, the establishment of moose in the National Park (from introduced population in North Park).

Slightly more subtle is the expansion of the non-native fox squirrel into “Rocky,” certainly associated with increased density of permanent residents in the Estes Valley with their suburban landscaping, irrigation, etc. And other species of the foothills may be expected in the National Park as climate change (mostly warming) continues and habitats and species of the foothills are forced to move upslope. We should keep an eye on the east side of the National Park, in the Big Thompson drainage in particular, the vicinity of Lumpy Ridge and McGraw Ranch. It’s there that we should expect to see the foothills species first. Read the rest of this interesting interview here.

Danny Brown

Shooting the Pistol

The author of the new book Shooting the Pistol: Courtside Photos of Pete Maravich at LSUmet up with Maravich on the LSU campus, while auditions were being held to play the young Maravich in an upcoming movie.

It had been several years since Brown, who shot photographs of Maravich throughout this college career, had been face-to-face with the hero that had spent the past 10 years in the NBA.

"After a reporter from The Advocate began to do her interview, I walked up close to her to get near to say hello," Brown said. "When he got through talking, he turned and he saw me. I'm not sure if he recognized me in that first glance, but I must have looked familiar because he stopped."

Shooting the Pistolcame out in 1991 telling the story of Maravich as a young boy who grew up to become one of the best basketball players to ever play the game.

"He looked at me and I said, 'I just want to know one thing. Who's going to play me in this movie?'" Brown said. "He just busted out laughing. We had a nice little chat and I said, 'Pete, I'm getting old. I've got your book. I should have brought it for you to autograph.' He said, 'Well don't worry about it. Bring it around any time." Brown replied with an, 'OK' but the book is yet to be signed.

"A month later he was dead," Brown said. Read the rest of the interview here.

Other Author Interviews for Summer Book Reading can be found here.