On Thursday, March 15th from 2PM-3PM (ET) we will welcome Sara Davison as our live Ask The Author guest.
Thirty years ago, Sara Davidson wrote the phenomenal bestseller Loose Change, the definitive book about the boomer generation’s coming-of-age. Now this witty social observer has again turned her discerning eye to her contemporaries, with Leap!, a no-holds-barred, illuminating, and hopeful look at the choices and challenges we face and the roads open to us.
For many years Davidson earned a living as a successful journalist and screenwriter, but in her fifties she saw her life come apart: She could no longer find work, she endured a break-up with her partner, and her children left for college. For the first time ever, she had nothing to do. She felt adrift, but she found that she was not alone.
In Leap!, Davidson sets out on a passionate quest to learn how to do the coming years well. Drawing on her own experience and that of others, she explores such questions as
• How does a high-powered person learn to walk down the ladder gracefully?
• How can women continue to be sensual and not touch-deprived?
• How do we arrange to grow old with our friends?
• What will be the fire at the center of our lives?
• Why are we still here?
Davidson interviews people from across the country and from all walks of life, including such icons as Carly Simon, Tom Hayden, Tracy Kidder, Jane Fonda, Ram Dass, and Iman, as well as teachers, writers, psychologists, businesspeople, and spiritual leaders. The candid portraits are both inspiring and cautionary.
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About the Author
Sara Davidson, author of the best-selling novel, Cowboy, first captured America's imagination with her international best seller, Loose Change, about three women growing up in the Sixties. In her many articles, books, TV shows and radio interviews, she's earned a reputation as a social observer who does cutting edge pieces about the way we live.
Sara grew up in California and went to Berkeley in the Sixties, where the rite of passage was to "get stoned, get laid and get arrested." While participating in the cultural revolution, she was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa, majoring in English and writing for the Daily Cal.
After Berkeley she headed for New York to attend the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Her first job was with the Boston Globe, where she became a national correspondent, covering everything from the election campaigns of Bobby Kennedy and Richard Nixon to the Woodstock Festival and the student strike at Columbia.
Returning to New York, she worked as a free-lance journalist for magazines ranging from Harpers, Esquire, The Atlantic and the New York Times to Rolling Stone. She was one of the group who developed the craft of literary journalism, combining the techniques of fiction with rigorous reporting to bring real events and people to life. Her work is collected in the textbook, The Literary Journalists, by Norman Sims.
In 1975, Sara moved back to California where for 25 years she alternated between writing for television and writing books. The books tend to fall in the gray zone between memoir and fiction. Sara uses the voice of the intimate journalist, drawing on material from her life and that of others and shaping it into a narrative that reads like fiction.
In television, she created two drama series, "Jack and Mike," and "Heart Beat," which ran on A.B.C. "Heart Beat" was the first ensemble of women on television who had no male boss above them, and featured the first lesbian character. She was later co-executive producer of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," wrote hundreds of hours of drama episodes, movies and miniseries, and in 1994 was nominated for a Golden Globe. She's been a guest on national television shows such as "The Today Show," "Larry King Live" and "Sixty Minutes," and she conducts interviews and does commentary on public radio.
In the year 2000, her life began to unravel. She was divorced, her children were leaving for college and she couldn't find work in television. Following her intuition, knowing nobody, she drove to Boulder, Colorado for three months to be a visiting writer at the University of Colorado. She never drove back, and is settling in Boulder, piecing together a different life which she writes about in Leap!
Her current passions are: conducting interviews for public radio, skiing with the Masters Race Team and hiking in the Rockies.
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