From an international career in classical ballet ended suddenly by an on-stage accident, Ken Ludden found himself perfectly suited to journalism. Follow this prolific writer's quirky path to an art form of communication-the written word-that had been so difficult for him to master as a student. His experiences in life, beginning with international travel at a young age and vast experience on stage, led him to write on a wide range of subjects: Classical Ballet -- Activism - AIDS/HIV - Alcoholism - Relationships - Celebrities - Sexuality - Employment - Politics - Family - Fashion - Health - Obituaries - Exercise - Cooking - History - Art - Education - Mysticism -- Entertainment and more. With more than two dozen books currently in print, Ludden's work chronicles life from the mid-1970s to the current, with a building authority along that route.

As the acclaimed author of And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts became the country's most recognized voice on the HIV/AIDS epidemic. His success emerged from a relentless work ethic and strong belief in the power of journalism to help mainstream society understand not just the rising tide of HIV/AIDS but gay culture and liberation. In-depth and dramatic, Andrew E. Stoner's biography follows the remarkable life of the brash, pioneering journalist. Shilts's reporting on AIDS in San Francisco broke barriers even as other gay writers and activists ridiculed his overtures to the mainstream and labeled him a traitor to the movement, charges the combative Shilts forcefully answered. Behind the scenes, Shilts overcame career-threatening struggles with alcohol and substance abuse to achieve the notoriety he had always sought, while the HIV infection he had purposely kept hidden began to take his life. Filled with new insights and fascinating detail, The Journalist of Castro Street reveals the historic work and passionate humanity of the legendary investigative reporter and author.

In June 1867, the San Francisco Elevator -one of the nation\'s premier black weekly newspapers during Reconstruction-began publishing articles by a Californian calling herself \Ann J. Trask\ and later \Semper Fidelis.\ Her name was Jennie Carter (1830-1881), and the Elevator would print her essays, columns, and poems for seven years. Carter probably spent her early life in New Orleans, New York, and Wisconsin, but by the time she wrote her \Always Faithful\ columns for the newspaper, she was in Nevada County, California. Her work considers California and national politics, race and racism, women\'s rights and suffrage, temperance, morality, education, and a host of other issues, all from the point of view of an unabashedly strong-minded African American woman. Recovering Carter\'s work from obscurity, this volume re-presents one of the most exciting bodies of extant work by an African American journalist before the twentieth century. Editor Eric Gardner provides an introduction that documents as much of Carter\'s life in California as can be known and places her work in historical and lite-rary context. Eric Gardner is chair and professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University. He is the editor of Major Voices: The Drama of Slavery, and his work has appeared in African American Review, the African American National Biography, and Legacy .

A kaleidoscopic tribute to San Francisco by a life-long Bay Area resident and co-founder of Salon explores specific city sites including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Land's End sea cliffs while tying his visits to key historical events. By the author of Shadow Knights. 30,000 first printing.

From the publisher of the NextDraft newsletter comes a cathartic and humorous ride through the unnerving, maddening hellscape of the 2020 press cycle, reestablishing the line between "real" news and real life. Please lower your shoulder restraint and keep your hands and feet in. You’re about to board a roller coaster ride through a year that was at once laughable and lethal. If you’ve got an anti-anxiety prescription, now would probably be a good time to call in a refill. Please Scream Inside Your Heart is a time capsule; a real-time ride through the maddening hell that was the 2020 news cycle—when historic turmoil and media mania stretched American sanity, democracy, and toilet paper. Who better to examine this unhinged period in all of its twists and turns than news addict Dave Pell, aka the internet’s Managing Editor? Fueled by the wisdom and advice of his two Holocaust-surviving parents, for whom parts of this story were all too familiar, Pell puts the key stories of 2020 into context with pith and punch; highlighting turning points that widened America’s divisions, deepened our obsession with a media-driven civil war, and nearly knocked the country off its tracks. Pell also examines the role of technology in society—and how we somehow built the exact opposite of what we thought we were building. Why did the lies spread faster than the truth? How did our tech addiction contribute to the nightmare? Why do you feel a vibration in your pocket right now? In 2020, the news was everywhere, and everything was political—even the air we breathed. So brace yourself as you’re hurtled through the twists and turns of the corkscrewiest year in American history; one that included two impeachment trials, a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter, the biggest election of a lifetime, a slide towards autocracy, and a warning from the makers of Lysol not to drink their products.

This is the tale of a devastating pandemic, of lives cut painfully short; it's also a love letter. Derek, a distinguished designer and J, his husband, a pioneering entrepreneur and creator of both The Embassy Club, London’s answer to Studio 54, and iconic Heaven, Europe’s largest gay discotheque, met and fell in love more than 40 years ago. Their lives were high-octane, full of adventure, fun and fearless creativity. Suddenly their friends began to get sick and die – AIDS had arrived in their lives. When they got tested, J received what was then a death sentence: he was HIV Positive. While the onset of AIDS strengthened stigma and fear globally, they confronted their personal crisis with courage, humour and an indomitable resolve to survive. J’s battle lasted six long years. Turning to spiritual reflection, yoga, nature – and always to love – Derek describes a transformation of the spirit, how compassion and empathy rose phoenix-like from the flames of sickness and death. Out of this transformation also came Aids Ark, the charity they founded, which helped to save, amongst the world’s most marginalised people, more than 1,000 HIV Positive lives. This is a story of joy and triumph; about facing universal challenges; about the great rewards that come from giving back. Derek speaks for a generation who lived through a global health crisis that many in society refused even to acknowledge. His is a powerful story chronicling this extraordinary time.

Killer Looks is the definitive story about the long-forgotten practice of providing free nose jobs, face-lifts, breast implants, and other physical alterations to prisoners, the idea being that by remodeling the face you remake the man. From the 1920s up to the mid-1990s, half a million prison inmates across America, Canada, and the U.K willingly went under the knife, their tab picked up by the government. In the beginning, this was a haphazard affair -- applied inconsistently and unfairly to inmates, but entering the 1960s, a movement to scientifically quantify the long-term effect of such programs took hold. And, strange as it may sound, the criminologists were right: recidivism rates plummeted. In 1967, a three-year cosmetic surgery program set on Rikers Island saw recidivism rates drop 36% for surgically altered offenders. The program, funded by a $240,000 grant from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, was led by Dr. Michael Lewin, who ran a similar program at Sing-Sing prison in 1953. Killer Looks draws on the intersectionality of socioeconomic success, racial bias, the prison industry complex and the fallacy of attractiveness to get to the heart of how appearance and societal approval creates self-worth, and uncovers deeper truths of beauty bias, inherited racism, effective recidivism programs, and inequality. ,

The bestselling book from two prizewinning, critically acclaimed contemporary chroniclers of San Francisco-a rich, illustrated, idiosyncratic portrait of this great city. In Spirits of San Francisco, #1 bestselling Cool Gray City of Love author Gary Kamiya joins forces with celebrated, bestselling artist Paul Madonna to take a fresh look at this one-of-a-kind city. Marrying image and text in a way no book about this city has done before, Kamiya's illuminating narratives accompany Madonna's masterful pen-and-ink drawings, breathing life into San Francisco sites both iconic and obscure. Paul Madonna's atmospheric images will awe: his wide-angle drawings offer a new perspective on the “crookedest street in the world” and vistas across the city. And Kamiya's engaging prose, accompanying each image, offers striking vignettes of this incredible city: witness his story of “Dumpville,” the bizarre community that sprang up in the 19th century on top of a massive garbage dump. Handsome and irresistible-much like the city it chronicles-Spirits of San Francisco is both a visual feast and a detailed, personal, loving, informed portrait of a beloved city.

"The definitive firsthand account of California's Camp Fire-the nation's deadliest wildfire in a century-and a riveting examination of what went wrong and how to avert future tragedies as the climate crisis unfolds ... A cautionary tale for a new era of megafires, Paradise is the gripping story of a town wiped off the map and the determination of its people to rise again"--