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 isnât 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 youâve 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 wonât 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

William Poy Lee was born in the North Beach-Chinatown districts of San Francisco on January 16, 1951 where he lived with one foot in a very traditional Chinatown and one foot in the bohemian arts, music, and politics of North Beach. He received his Bachelors of Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969 and his Juris Doctor from Hastings College of Law, University of California, San Francisco in 1978.

 A lawyer since 1979, he lives in Berkeley, where he writes full-time. The Eighth Promise is his first book. For more on the author, please visit www.TheEighthPromise.com.

Glasgow Phillips is a film and television writer in Los Angeles. His credits include seasons on South Park, and Father of the Pride, and catastrophic pilots for Comedy Central and MTV.  He wrote and directed the important zombie-western feature film Undead of Alive.  Visit his website.

Susan Shapiro has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe, The Nation, Salon. com, Village Voice, and many other media.  She is the co-editor of the anthology "Food for the Soul," and the author of the acclaimed memoirs "Lighting Up" and Five Men Who Broke My Heart which was optioned for a movie by Paramount Pictures. She has appeared on the Today Show, Dateline, Good Day New York, E!, Entertainment, and prime time documentaries on ABC and the Oxygen network. Susan lives in Greenwich Village with her husband, a TV/film writer and teaches journalism at NYU, the New School, and Mediabistro.  Visit her website.

Susan Shapiro has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Boston Globe, The Nation, Salon. com, Village Voice, and many other media.  She is the co-editor of the anthology "Food for the Soul," and the author of the acclaimed memoirs "Lighting Up" and Five Men Who Broke My Heart which was optioned for a movie by Paramount Pictures. She has appeared on the Today Show, Dateline, Good Day New York, E!, Entertainment, and prime time documentaries on ABC and the Oxygen network. Susan lives in Greenwich Village with her husband, a TV/film writer and teaches journalism at NYU, the New School, and Mediabistro.  Visit her website.

Eric Liu is the author of Guiding Lights: How to Mentor- And Find Life's Purpose, the Official Book of National Mentoring Month.  He is also the author of The Accidental Asian: Notes of a Native Speaker, a New York Times Notable Book featured in the PBS documentary Matters of Race, and he edited the Norton anthology Next: Young American Writers on the New Generation.

Eric served as a speechwriter for President Clinton in the first term and as White House deputy domestic policy adviser in the second. After the White House, he was an executive at the digital media company RealNetworks. He's also been a frequent commentator of CNN, MSNBC and CNBC. In 2002, Eric was named by the World Economic Forum as one of the 100 "Global Leaders of Tomorrow."  He lives in Seattle, where he teaches at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs and hosts an acclaimed television interview program called Seattle Voices. In addition to organizing the annual Guilding Lights Weekend, Eric speaks regularly at conferences, corporations and campuses around the country. Visit his website.

Margaret Sartor is a writer and photographer. She currently teaches at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and lives with her husband and two children in Durham, North Carolina.

Sartor's most recent book, Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s  is a New York Times bestseller and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune.

Margaret Sartor's photographs of her family have been widely published and exhibited and are in a number of permanent museum collections. As an editor, Sartor has published three books, What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney (co-edited with Geoff Dyer) was chosen as one of the Top Ten Photography Books of 1999 by the Village Voice.  Visit her website.

Sara Miles is the author of How to Hack a Party Line: The Democrats and Silicon Valley and co-editor of Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan and the anthology Opposite Sex. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Out, The Progressive, La Jornada, and Salon, among others.  She has written extensively on military affairs, politics, and culture. The Founder of St. Gregory's Food Pantry, she lives in San Francisco, California with her family. Visit her website.

Dr. William McKeen is the  author of five books and editor or three more. He has been copy editor and reporter at several newspapers, and was staff editor at The Saturday Evening Post and production editor for The American Spectator. His latest book, Highway 61, is a memoir of a 6,000-mile road trip with his college-age son. In addition to his anthology, Rock and Roll is Here to Stay, Mckeen has written critical biographies of Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. He is working on a full-scale biography of Hunter Thompson, an anthology about childhoods in Florida and a rock'n'roll book called Rip This Joint.

McKeen specializes in media history, popular culture and literary journalism. He has earned his B.A. in history and his M.A. in journalism from Indiana University and his Ph.D. in education from the University of Oklahoma. He is married and has seven children.  Visit his website.

Adrian C. Laing, is a practicing Solicitor Advocate of his own firm Laing and Co, and regularly writes and presents on issues relating to media and entertainment law. Adrian studied law at Exeter University and was called to the Bar (Inner Temple, London) in 1979 (aged 21). He subsequently studied under Michael Foucault at the College de France, Paris.

Adrian is the co-author (with his wife Deborah Fosbrook) of two leading law titles: 'The A-Z Contract Clauses' and 'The Media Contracts Handbook'. Adrian has five children and lives in Highgate, North London. Visit his website.

Jay Kopelman is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, stationed at Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, CA in September 2004, as the Special Operations Forces Liaison Officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF), Jay deployed to Iraq to train the Iraqi Special Forces. In October, he was assigned as the liaison officer to an Iraqi Army battalion, and in November they entered Fallujah to battle insurgents for control of the city. It was there that he met and adopted Lava, a five week old puppy abandoned during the during the invasion.

Following his return to the United States, based on his experiences in Iraq, Jay was asked to help train the Marines who would return to Iraq as advisors to the Iraqui armed forces and the police. He currently serves as the Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for advisor training at I MEF.

Jay lives in La Jolla, CA, with his wife, Pam: son Mattox; stepson Sean; their two dogs, Lava and Koda, and Cheddar the cat.  Both Jay and his wife, an anthropologist, are avid surfers who make annual pilgrimage to Costa Rica. They also spend time skiing, camping, waterskiing/wakeboarding and rock climbing. Visit his website.  Watch a video of Jay and Lava.

]]> Memoir Wed, 18 Apr 2007 21:13:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=205098# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:18:19 dog rescue, soldiers and dogs, dog lovers, military dogs, joy kopelman, man and dog, marine dog Psychjourney Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=204900# Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews lawyer Dylan Schaffer, author of Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story published by Bloomsbury USA.

Dylan Schaffer has been a criminal defense lawyer in the Bay Area for 15 years. He writes the Misdemeanor Man legal thriller series. His first book, Misdemeanor Man, won Mystery Ink's 2004 Gumshoe for best debut. Misdemeanor Man and his second book in the series, I Right The Wrongs, were Booksense selections. His new book, a memoir called Life, Death & Bialys: A Father/Son Baking Story was a Chicago Tribune 2006 best book of the year and a 2006 Barnes & Nobles Discover New Writers selection. Visit his website.

Harriet Brown is the award-winning author of the Good-bye Window: A Year in the Life of A Day Care Center and the Promised Land, a collection of poems. Her poems have appeared in Poetry and Prairie Schooner, among other literary magazines. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and other national publications. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Madison, Wisconsin. Visit her website.

Kat Albrecht is an award-winning former police bloodhound handler, crime scene investigator, search and rescue manager, and police officer turned investigative pet detective. She is the founder of Missing Pet Partnership, a national nonprofit organization working to establish community-based lost-pet services.

Kat lives in Clovis, California, with her three dogs and three cats.  Visit her website. For suggestions on how to find a lost pet, visit Missing Pet Partnership.

John Higgs has spent 10 years writing and producing in a wide range of media, making him the only man who can boast of producing both a long running series for BBC Radio 4 and a best selling videogame for the PlayStation 2.

He created the innovative historical and geographical quiz show X Marks The Spot for BBC Radio 4. The series has now been running for eight years. Videogames that he has produced include Crash and Burn, and ATV: Quad Power Racing 2, which has sold over three quarters of a million copies.

In between these very different endevours he has worked extensively in television and animation, writing and producing programmes including Audrey & Friends, Pen Monkeys, and TooMuch TV, for which he earned a Best Children's Entertainment Programme BAFTA nomination. He has written for publications including The Guardian, The Independent and Mojo, and is a judge in two categories for the BAFTA Games Awards. He has a degree in Computer Science.

He lives in Brighton with his partner and two children. Visit his website.

Mindy Lewis is a writer, painter, and graphic designer based in New York City. Her essays have been published in two anthologies and in Newsweek, Body & Soul, Poets & Writers and Lilith magazines. A finalist in The Writer's Voice 1999 New Voice Creative Non-Fiction Awards. She has been a resident at Vermont Studio Center, Palenville Interarts, Byrdcliffe Colony, and Banff Center for the Arts.  Visit her website.

Boxer, preacher, and businessman, George Foreman says about our guest, Mr. Joe Massengale, "The Lessons Joe Massengale learned back in the piney woods around Marshall, Texas, and gave to his sons to take into the world are some of the same ones I hope my children, my congregation, the kids in my youth center and my customers get from me."

Entrepreneur Joe Massengale is the owner of Joe's Expert Tree Service. Visit his website.

Boxer, preacher, and businessman, George Foreman says about our guest, Mr. Joe Massengale, "The Lessons Joe Massengale learned back in the piney woods around Marshall, Texas, and gave to his sons to take into the world are some of the same ones I hope my children, my congregation, the kids in my youth center and my customers get from me."

Entrepreneur Joe Massengale is the owner of Joe's Expert Tree Service. Visit his website.

Allen Rucker is the author of seven books of non-fiction and humor, most of them written since he became paralyzed. He's written three books on the HBO series, "The Sopranos," including the New York Times #1 bestselling "The Sopranos Family Cookbook." His other books include "The History of White People in America," with Martin Mull, and "Redneck Woman," with Gretchen Wilson.  He is also an award-winning TV writer.

He is the recipient of the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award, the Writers Guild Annual Award, and two CableACE Awards among others. In 2005, he recieved the special WGA Joan Young Award for career distinction as a writer with a disability. "The History of White People In America" was honored by the Museum of Television & Radio in 2001 and TVTV was given a full MTR retrospective in 2004.

He also teaches at the USC School of Cinema-TV. He lives in LA with his wife, Ann-Marie. They have two sons. For more information visit his website.

Born in Miami, Joy Castro studied literature at Trinity University and Texas A&M University. She began publishing short stories during graduate school and took a position in 1997 teaching literature and creative writing at Wabash College, where she lectures on women's literature, race and gender issues, literary modernism, and the Harlem Renaissance. An award-winning teacher, she publishes articles on innovative strategies for the post-secondary classroom, and her published literary scholarship focuses on experimental women writers of the twentieth century such as Jean Rhys, Meridel Le Sueur, Sandra Cisneros, and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Committed to broadening the reach of higher education to communities in need, she has offered free courses to at-risk teenagers, low-income adults, and victims of domestic violence, and she runs the biannual Creative Writing/ Creative Teaching conference for Indiana high school and middle school teachers.

 Her honors include the Charles Gordone Award for Poetry and a Frank B. Vogel Scholarship in nonfiction at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and her short fiction and creative nonfiction appear in anthologies and in journals such as North American Review, Cream City Review, Chelsea, Quarterly West, and Puerto del Sol.  Visit her website.

Award winning author and Multi-Mediast, Hillary Carlip's memoir Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan  is an American Bookseller's Association Book Sense Pick, and was selected by Borders as one of the Top Literary Memoirs of 2006. She has appeared on countless radio and TV shows, including Oprah, who dedicated an entire episode to Hillary's first book, Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out, and the Ellen Degeneres Show, where she taught Ellen how to eat fire (complete with Liza Minnelli running onstage--unplanned--with a fire extinguisher!) Hillary's second book, Zine Scene, won an American Libray Association Award.

Hillary is the creator, host and editor of the acclaimed literary website FRESH YARN, an NPR commentator, an artist, and a creative and motivational consultant and speaker.  Currently Hillary is working on her fourth book, and developing a network television show based on Queen of the Oddballs.  You can find out more about her, see video clips, etc. at her website.

Evelyn McDonnell is the pop culture writer at the Miami Herald, where she has worked since 2001. She is the author of Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock 'n' Roll and  Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork.  She coedited the anthologies Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap and Stars Don't Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth. 

A former senior editor at the Village Voice and associate editor at SF Weekly, her writing on music, poetry, theater, and culture has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies, including Ms., Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Spin, Travel & Leisure, Us, Billboard, and Option.

Evelyn lives in Miami Beach with her husband, Bud, her stepdaughters, Karlie and Kendra, her son Cole, their dog, Otis, and two cats, Paleface and Moonpie.  Visit her website.

Portia Iversen, an Emmy-winning art director, has been a vigorous proponent of autism research since her son Dov was diagnosed in 1994. Together with her husband, Jon Shestack, she established the Cure Autism Now Foundation, one of the largest nongovernmental funding resources for autism research worldwide. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.  Visit her website and new online community.

Purchase The Mind Tree: A Miraculous Child Breaks the Silence of Autism by Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay.

Allen Shawn grew up in New York City and currently lives in Vermont, where he is on the faculty of Bennington College. He started composing music at the age of ten, and has produced a large catalogue of orchestral, chamber, and piano works, as well as music for ballet, theater, and film. He performs frequently as a pianist, and he has contributed articles to The Atlantic Monthly, The Musical Times, and The Times Literary Supplement . Allen is also the author of the book "Arnold Schoenberg's Journey. He is the father of Annie and Harold Shawn.

Jeff Bell is a longtime veteran of radio and television news. He currently co-anchors afternoon drive at KCBS-AM, the CBS Network's San Francisco flagship and one of the most successful all-news radio stations in America.

Prior to joining KCBS, Bell spent eight years hosting drive-time news programs at KFBK in Sacramento. His reporting has aired on the CBS Radio Network; and The Associated Press, The Radio-Television News Directors Association of Northern California, and The Sacramento Bee have all recognized him for his radio work. On the television side, Bell spent several years as a writer for KTVU-TV's Mornings on Two, a ground-breaking and hugely successful Bay Area news program.

Bell holds a master's degree in business from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo; and a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of California, Irvine. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two daughters. Visit his websites RewindReplayRepeat and Beyond the Doubt.

Daniel Burston, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology who holds doctorates in Psychology (1989) and in Social and Political Thought (1985) from York University in Toronto. Dr. Burston is chair of the psychology department at Duqusense Univeristy. He is also an Associate of the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, the Advisory Board of Janus Head, and the Editorial Board of the Journal of Society for Eistential Analysis.

 His books have been reviewed in numerous journals and newspapers, including The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, The Boston Sunday Globe, The Boston Book Review, the New Republic, and the Washington Times.  Visit his webpage

Datcher is the former Director of Literary Programs at the World Stage Writer's Workshop in Leimert Park. He is co-editor of the new national journal of literary nonfiction THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FACT.  Datcher is a professor of English at Loyola Marymount University

Robert Hine studied at UCLA, Pomona College, and Yale. He spent the bulk of his teaching life at the University of California, Riverside. On retirement he moved to UCIrvine. His historical works involved the search for community both in California and on the wider frontier (with a few digressions into Western art). Since retirement he has written two memoirs: Second Sight and Broken Glass. His first fiction will be published late this year.

Jane Ganahl has been a journalist in the San Francisco Bay Area for 25 years. For both the Examiner and Chronicle, she served as City Hall muckraker, pop music critic, and cultural observer. For four and a half years, until she left the paper this summer, she was columnist of the popular Single Minded feature, which celebrated the unmarried life.

Last year, Jane edited the well-received anthology, Single Woman of a Certain Age: 29 Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife. She has also contributed essays to three other female-centric anthologies, including the upcoming ÃïïSingle State of the Union.Ãïï She has also made numerous radio and TV appearances talking about la vida sola (most notably on The Today Show).

Because she canÃïït stand to sit still, Jane also organizes a monthly a dinner for creative people in San Francisco, as well as the annual Litquake literary festival which she co-founded in 1999. She lives south of The City on the beautiful San Mateo County coast, dotes on her grown daughter and enjoys her single life. She is looking forward to the post-journalism world so she can get more involved in politics. Visit her website.

Randy Grim is founder and President of Stray Rescue in St. Louis, Missouri. In October 2002, he received the first Guardian Award for his work with Stray Rescue. Grim and his volunteers have received the Red Cross Life Saver Award for rescuing a dog wrapped in 30 pound chains and drenched in battery acid, and the St. Louis FOCUS Award for innovative solutions.

Grim is the subject of the critically acclaimed book, The Man Who Talks to Dogs: America's Wild Street Dogs and Their Unlikely Savior and the author of Miracle Dog: How Quentin Survived the Gas Chamber To Speak for Animals on Death Row. Animal Planet, National Geographic, People Magazine, The Today Show, and numerous other media have featured Grim. Visit his website   Listen to Randy's radio show Animal Tails.

Make a tax-deductible donation to Stray Rescue of St. Louis

Richard McKenzie is the Walter B. Gerken Professor of Enterprise and Society in the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Professor McKenzie has written more than Twenty-five books and monographs.

Professor McKenzie grew up at Barium Springs Home for Children (near Charlotte, North Carolina), an experience that led him to write The Home: A Memoir of Growing Up in an Orphanage and that caused him to edit Rethinking Orphanages for the 21st Century.

He is executive producer of documentary film on The Homecomings:The Forgotten World of America's Orphanages that has been selected for screenings at several film festivals around the country and that received the Best Documentary Award in the Sedona (AZ) International Film Festival in early 2005.  He is married to Karen Albers McKenzie and has four children.  Visit his website.

]]> biography Wed, 14 Mar 2007 19:46:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=192356# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:48:40 William James, Deborah Blum, history of psychology, paranormal, ghost hunters, life after death, psychology Psychjourney Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=192314# Deborah Harper, President of Psychjourney, interviews , Dr. Thomas Cottle, author of When The Music Stopped: Discovering My Mother published by State University of New York Press.

A sociologist and licensed clinical psychologist, Thomas J. Cottle is Professor of Education at Boston University. He received his BA degree from Harvard University, his MA and Ph.D. degrees from The University of Chicago, and an LHD degree from Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. He did post-doctorate clinical training at The Children's Hospital, Boston and Tavistock Clinic and Anna Freud Clinic in London.

Some of his recently published books include A Sense of Self: The Work of Affirmation; Hardest Times: The Trauma of Long Term Unemployment; At Peril: Stories of Injustice; Mind Fields: and Adolescent Consciousness in a Culture of Distraction. His essays have appeared in professional sociology, education, psychology, literary, and religious journals, as well as major newspapers and periodicals. Visit his website.

Ron Saxen has worked as a model, stand-up comedian, and comedy writer and had worked in sales for a number of high-profile companies. Ron Saxen is a recovered Binge Eater and is currently living successfully in Northern California. He continues to create new true life stories to tell and one's that he hopes will not only entertain, but provide help and inspiration to the millions of people with eating disorders and the tens of millions fighting the battle of obesity.

Ron's never felt happier, luckier, and more in love than right now. Just in case it is a dream, Ron vows to never pinch himself, and would appreciate it if you wouldn't either. Visit his website.

Jean Trounstine is an author, activist and professor of humanities at Middlesex Community College in Massachusetts who has won many awards for her work. She wrote Shakespeare Behind Bars: the Power of Drama in a Women's Prison (St. Martin's, 2001) about directing plays in prison for ten years. She is co-founder of the women's branch of Changing Lives Through Literature, an educational alternative to prison, and co-editor of a book by the same name (Notre Dame Press, 1999). She lectures frequently and has been featured on The Today Showe," "Voice of America," The Connection" and NPR. Her poem, "In the Mirror," was considered for a Pushcart prize and her writing has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, The Southwest Review, Working Woman and many other publications. Visit her website.

Sy Montgomery is a naturalist, author, documentary scriptwriter, and radio commentator who writes for children as well as adults. Among her award-winning books are Journey of the Pink Dolphins, Spell of the Tiger, and Search for the Golden Moon Bear.

She has made four trips to Peru and Brazil to study the pink dolphins of the Amazon; and on other expeditions, she was chased by an angry silverback gorilla in Zaire; bitten by a vampire bat in Costa Rica; undressed by an orangutan in Borneo; and hunted by a tiger in India. She also worked in a pit crawling with eighteen thousand snakes in Manitoba; handled a wild tarantula in French Guiana; and swam with piranhas, electric eels, and dolphins in the Amazon. She lives in New Hampshire. Visit her website.

Danielle Trussoni grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Visit her website.

Share your comments about the book and interview on the Psychjourney Audio Book Club blog.

]]> Memoir Fri, 2 Mar 2007 00:44:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=187737# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:41:36 fathers and daughters, vietnam veteran, post traumatic shock, parenting, fathering, childhood memoir Psychjourney Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=187421# Psychjourney, interviews Deborah Siegel, Ph.D., and Daphne Uviller, editors of ONLY CHILD: Writers on the Singular Joys and Sorrows of Growing Up Solo published by Harmony Books.

Daphne Uviller is a contributing writer and former Books/Poetry editor at Time Out New York. Her reviews, profiles, and articles -- on topics ranging from Jewish firefighters to breast reductions -- have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsday, The Forward, New York Magazine, Oxygen, Allure, and Self, for which she used to write an ethics column.Visit her website.

Peggy Orenstein is an internationally recognized writer, editor and speaker about issues affecting girls and women, her previous books include Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Kids, Love and Life in a Half-Changed World (Doubleday/Anchor), and the best-selling SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem and the Confidence Gap (Doubleday/Anchor)

A contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, Orenstein has also written for such publications as Vogue, Elle, Discover, More, Glamour, Mother Jones, Salon, Parenting, "O: The Oprah Magazine," and The New Yorker. Her work has been included in many anthologies, including The Best American Science Writing (2004).

She has been a guest lecturer and keynote speaker at numerous college campuses; at state, regional and municipal conferences on gender equity and on juvenile justice; at the National Education Association's National Conference on Women and Minorities and at the conference of the Canadian Teachers Federation. She has published editorials relating to her research in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and USA Today and has appeared on, among other programs, Nightline, Good Morning America, The Today Show, NPR's Fresh Air and Morning Edition and CBC's As It Happens. Visit her website .

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]]> biography Fri, 9 Feb 2007 22:26:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=180285# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:59:16 cybernetics, feedback, information age, computer age, MIT, Norbert Wiener , information age, bipolar depression, genius Psychjourney No http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=179258# Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Karen Ely, author of Daring To Dream: Reflections on the Year I Found Myself.

In 2003 Karen Ely fulfilled a lifelong dream of creating a women's spiritual retreat program. Located in Sedona, Arizona, A Woman's Way is her latest project in a life filled with commitment to issues affecting women.

Through her 30 year non-profit career - from domestic violence and sexual assault to drug prevention and welfare-to-work. Karen has helped assist many women through difficult life transitions. It is her hope that A Woman's Way will benefit other women searching for a spiritual center and a path to find themselves. Visit her website.

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]]> Memoir Wed, 7 Feb 2007 03:53:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=179258# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:39:04 affirmation, self growth, self help, journaling, self actualization, women at mid life, divorce, spirituality, psychology Psychjourney We have the strength, wisdom and power to grow from life's most challenging experiences Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=177380# Psychjourney, interviews Professor Sue William Silverman, author of Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction  published by W.W. Norton.

Sue William Silverman's first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You (University of Georgia Press), won the Association of Writers and Writing Programs award series in creative nonfiction. Love Sick: One Woman's Journey Through Sexual Addiction (W.W. Norton) is her second memoir. Her books have been translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, and Norwegian. She teaches in the low-residency MFA in Writing progam at Vermont College.

As a professional speaker, she has appeared on many nationally syndicated radio and TV programs, including Anderson Cooper, 360 on CNN,  and Montel Williams. She is featured in the award-winning documentary Pursuit of Pleasure.  Visit her website.

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This is part two of a two part interview.  Dr. Spiro's  twin sister and co-author, Pamela Spiro Wagner, was interviewed earlier about her life and the book.  Divided Minds: Twin Sisters and Their Journey Through Schizoprhenia won them the 2006  Literary Award from NAMI.   The book was also a finalist in the 2006 Connecticut Book Award.

Dr. Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D., is a psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of adults with anxiety and mood disorders (OCD, mood swings) as well as the diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric Lyme disease. Dr. Spiro attended Harvard Medical School and completed a year of medical residency before she went into psychiatry at HarvardÃïïs Mass. Mental Health Center. Completing the residency, she, her husband and new daughter moved to Connecticut. She was a unit chief and Asst. Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale Psychiatric Institute for three years until her son was born when she left the pressures of academia for private practice and more time with her children.

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Stephen Hinshaw, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard in 1974, summa cum laude, he directed day school and residential programs for children with developmental disabilities for three years. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UCLA in 1983. He taught in the Psychology Department at UCLA from 1986-1990 and joined the Berkeley faculty in 1990.

Hinshaw has authored over 170 articles, chapters, and reviews on child psychopathology. His books include Attention Deficits and Hyperactivity Disorder, and The Mark of Shame: Stigma and Mental Illness and an Agenda for Change. Visit his website.

Share your comments on the book and interview on the Psychjourney Audio Book Club blog.

Share your comments on the book and interview on the Psychjourney Audio Book Club blog.

]]> Memoir Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:27:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=167839# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:34:05 adoption, adoptee rights, birth mother, psychology, psychologist, memoir Psychjourney Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=167326# Psychjourney interviews Dr. Catherine McCall, author of Lifeguarding: A Memoir of Secrets, Swimming, and the South

Catherine McCall has done regular commentary for regional public radio and her writing has appeared in various publications including the New York Times, the Wilmington Star-News, and the North Carolina Literary Review.  A psychiatrist based in Wilmington, North Carolina, Caroline holds an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

She graduated from Emory College (B.A. in Chemistry and Psychology) and its medical school. At Emory, she completed a residency in general psychiatry and a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, serving as chief resident in her final year. After all that schooling, she moved to the beach, started a private practice in psychiatry and stepped up her focus on writing. That focus eventually led her to do commentaries on public radio on to receive an MFA in creative nonfiction from UNCW. Her first book, Lifeguarding: A Memoir of Secrets, Swimming and the South
(Harmony Books, Random House, July 2006) was her MFA thesis.  Visit her website.

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]]> Memoir Thu, 21 Dec 2006 20:00:00 GMT http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=163858# deborah@psychjourney.com 00:55:05 autism, psychology, memoir, child abuse, autistic, childhood memoir Psychjourney Clean http://pjbookclubmemoirs.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=161097# Psychjourney, interviews Ms. Lee Montgomery, author of The Things Between Us: A Memoir

Lee Montgomery is the editorial director for Tin House Books and the executive editor for Tin House magazine. She was a fiction editor at the Iowa Review, the editor of the Santa Monica Review, and for the anthologies Absolute Disaster: Fiction From Los Angeles and Transactions: The Iowa Anthology of Innovative Fiction.  Her stories and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications including Alaska Quarterly, Black Clock, and Denver Quarterly. Visit her website.

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Deborah Blum is a Pulitzer-prize winning science writer and a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, which was a finalist for the 2002 Los Angeles Book Prize. Her most recent book is Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death. In addition, she is  co-editor of A Field Guide for Science Writers which was released in its second edition in 2005 and The Monkey Wars (Oxford, 1994), a Library Journal best book of the year in Science and Technology; Sex on the Brain (Viking, 1997), a New York Times Notable Book.

She was a staff writer for five newspapers and won the Pulitzer Prize for her coverage of primate research in 1992 while a science writer at The Sacramento Bee. She has also written for The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous magazines, from Discover to The Utne Reader. She is a former president of the National Association of Science writers and currently sits on the Board of Life Sciences of the National Research Council and the board of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Visit Deborah Blum's web page.

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Mr. Gene Cheek describes himself as a blue-collar son of the South. He was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina on March 2, 1951. He spent the first twelve years of his life living in various parts of Winston-Salem. He presently lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina Visit his website www.genecheek.com

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