Memoirs & Biographies

Dr. Kevin Keough, clinical psychologist, and host of North Star Guardians and Warrior Traditions, interviews Mr. Marc "Animal" MacYoung.

Topic: Martial arts, self defense and the way of the warrior

Growing up on the gang-infested streets of Los Angeles not only gave Marc MacYoung his street name "Animal," but also extensive firsthand experience about what does and does not work for self-defense. What he teaches is based on experience and has proven reliability for surviving violence. He is considered by many to be one of the most analytical thinkers on the subject of  surviving violence and personal safety today.

He has taught police, military, martial artists and civilians around the world, his message is always the same: Hand-to-hand combat is a last ditch effort when other, more effective, preventive measures have failed. The best preventative measure of them all is not to put yourself into situations where you need to fight your way out. He knows that from personal experience and that is what he teaches, lest people find themselves in the same kind of situations that he did. Unlike many martial arts instructors, who claim to have been street fighters, his past is not a marketing promotion. Nor is it an exaggerated list of victories against legions of thugs through use of his undefeatable martial art style. It is filled with tales of ambushes, hit-and-run gang warfare, drugs, alcohol, bad behavior, stupid mistakes, weapons flashing in dark alleys, homicides, funerals and long nights spent in hospital waiting rooms praying  for wounded friends to survive. That is the reality of being a street fighter. It is nothing any sane person would brag about -- much less pretend to be. As he often says It's a whole different ballgame when the other side shoots back...(1)

Yet, as one who lived despite the blood-splattered streets, MacYoung knows that survival isn’t a matter of how "tough" you are or your ability to fight. Nor is it how many stripes you have on a black belt or how many tournaments you’ve won. Although some physical  skill is indeed necessary, survival is more a matter of knowledge and awareness. And that is what he stresses. Without those two key elements, you won’t make it out of a dark and lonely parking lot. 

About that "Animal" part of his name... yes, he did all the stupid and dangerous things one needs to do to earn that nickname. It is a lifestyle he no longer lives or endorses. Unfortunately, since Animal is the name he was first published under, like a tattoo, he's sort of stuck with it as a constant reminder of a violent and dangerous youth.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Holly George-Warren, author of Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry published by Oxford University Press.

Holly George-Warren is an award-winning writer, editor, and a frequent commentator on Western films, music, and fashion.  A contributor to more then 40 books on popular music, she is the author of Cowboy! How Hollywood Invented the Wild West and co-author of How The West Was Worn: A History of Western Wear.  She is also the author of the children's books Honky-Tonk-Heroes and Hillbilly Angels: The Pioneers of Country & Western Music and Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock & Roll.

Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, and many other publications.  Beginning in Fall 2006, she will be Adjunct Professor of Journalism at NUNY-Paltz.  Visit her website.

Read the Gene Autry cowboy code

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Barbara Bizantz Raymond, author of The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption published by Carroll & Graf.

Barbara Bisantz Raymond is an adjunct professor, adoptive mother, and writer. She has received two awards for feature writing from Women in Communications, and was an author of a child care section that won the National Magazine Award for Public Service. She contributed to The Handbook of Magazine Article Writing, and has written for The New York Times, USA Today, Working Mother, Parents, Writer's Digest, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, McCall's, and Ladies' Home Journal. She lives in New York City.Visit her website.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Lisa Alther, author of Kinfolks: Falling Off the Family Tree- The Search for My Melungeon Ancestors published by Arcade Publishing.

Lisa Alther was born in 1944 in Kingsport, Tennessee, where she went to public schools.  She was graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in English literature in 1966. After attending the Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe College and working for Atheneum Publishers in New York, she moved to Hinesburg, Vermont, where she has lived for thirty years, raising her daughter. She taught Southern Fiction at St. Michael's College in Winooski, Vermont and Southern fiction at East Tennessee State Univ. in Johnson City, TN.

Alther is the author of five novels -- Kinflicks, Original Sins, Other Women, Bedrock, and Five Minutes in Heaven.  Her reviews and articles have appeared in many periodicals, including the New York Times, Art and Antiques, Los Angeles Times,  and the Boston Globe.

 Having lived in London and Paris, she currently divides her time between Vermont and New York and Tennessee. Visit her website.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Mr. David Quammen, author of The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution published by W.W. Norton.

David Quammen is the author of The Song of the Dodo and Monster of God, is a three-time winner of the National Magazine Award, most recently for a National Geographic story on Darwin.  He has also written for Harpers, Rolling Stone and New York Times Book Review.  He wrote a column, called Natural Acts for Outside magazine for fifteen years (for which he won two National Magazine Awards.) Quannen lives in Bozeman, Montana.

 

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Janine Latus, author of If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation published by Simon & Schuster.

Janine Latus is a freelance writer, radio commentator, and regular speaker on domestic abuse issues. She has also taught writing and journalism at several universities and is on the board of directors of the American Society of Journalists and Authors . Her work has appeared in O, the Oprah magazine, More, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Parents, All You, American Baby. She has written for WomensWallStreet.com and her commentaries have aired on Public Radio International's Marketplace, and she routinely speaks at conferences, workshops and press events. If I Am Missing or Dead is her first book. She lives in Virginia. Visit her website.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Professor Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She's Not There: A Life In Two Genders published by Broadway.

Since 1988, Jenny Boylan has been a professor of creative writing and American literature at Colby College, in Waterville, Maine. Boylan was a visiting professor at University College Cork, Ireland, in 1998-99.  She was promoted to the rank of full Professor in May of 2001, and was chosen by students as the Charles Walker Bassett "Professor of the Year" in 2000.  At present she is Director of Creative Writing at Colby.

Her books include The Planets, and The Constellations,  and Remind Me To Murder You Later. Her stories have appeared in such literary magazines as Confrontation, Florida Review, Quarterly West, Western Humanities Review, Writer's Digest and Southwest Review. She lives in Maine with her family. Visit her website.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Professor Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph Ellison: A Biography published by Knopf.

Arnold Rampersad is the Sara Hart Kimball Professor in the Humanities and is a member of the Department of English at Stanford University.

His books include The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. DuBois (1976); The Life of Langston Hughes (2 vols., 1986, 1988); Days of Grace: A Memoir (1993), co-authored with Arthur Ashe; and Jackie Robinson: A Biography (1997). In addition, he has edited several volumes including Collected Poems of Langston Hughes; the Library of America edition (2 vols.) of works by Richard Wright, with revised individual editions of Native Son and Black Boy; and (as co-editor with Deborah McDowell) Slavery and the Literary Imagination. He was also co-editor, with Shelley Fisher Fishkin, of the Race and American Culture book series published by Oxford University Press

From1991 to 1996, he held a MacArthur Foundation fellowship. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. Visit his webpage.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Mr. Shawn Decker, author of My Pet Virus: The True Story of a Rebel Without a Cure published by Tarcher.

Shawn Decker and his wife, fellow HIV educator, Gwenn Barringer- who is HIV negative, belong to CAMPUSPEAK, a speaker's bureau specializing in health issues. Since 2000, Shawn and Gwenn have spoken to over 50,000 students on colleges campuses, traveling nationally to share how they keep Gwenn HIV negative in their program, A Boy, A Girl, A Virus & The Relationship That Happened Anyway. Together they've been featured on MTV, the BBC, CNN.com and have appeared in an HBO documentary as well as in Cosmopolitan. My Pet Virus is Shawn's first book. They live in Charlottesville, Virginia. Visit his website.

Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Vanessa Vega, author of  Comes the Darkness, Comes the Light: A Memoir of Cutting, Healing, and Hope  published by AMACOM/American Management Association.

Vanessa Leigh Vega is a high school English teacher and motivational speaker in Irving, Texas. She is a contributing author to the award-winning Taste Berries for Teens Volume IV.  She has been nationally recognized for excellence in teaching by being named to the Whos Who Among Americas Teachers in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. She has degrees from Texas Tech University and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. She resides in Irving, Texas where she is working on her next book.  Visit her website.