Laura Wilson – författare

Internationally acclaimed for his portraits of powerful and accomplished people and women of great beauty, Richard Avedon was one of the twentieth century's greatest photographers-but perhaps not the most obvious choice to create a portrait of ordinary people of the American West. Yet in 1979, the Amon Carter Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, daringly commissioned him to do just that.The resulting 1985 exhibition and book, In the American West, was a milestone in American photography and Avedon's most important body of work. His unflinching portraits of oilfield and slaughterhouse workers, miners, waitresses, drifters, mental patients, teenagers, and others captured the unknown and often-ignored people who work at hard, uncelebrated jobs. Making no apologies for shattering stereotypes of the West and Westerners, Avedon said, "I'm looking for a new definition of a photographic portrait. I'm looking for people who are surprising-heartbreaking-or beautiful in a terrifying way. Beauty that might scare you to death until you acknowledge it as part of yourself."Photographer Laura Wilson worked with Avedon during the six years he was making In the American West. In Avedon at Work, she presents a unique photographic record of his creation of this masterwork-the first time a major photographer has been documented in great depth over an extended period of time. She combines images she made during the photographic sessions with entries from her journal to show Avedon's working methods, his choice of subjects, his creative process, and even his experiments and failures. Also included are a number of Avedon's finished portraits, as well as his own comments and letters from some of the subjects.Avedon at Work adds a new dimension to our understanding of one of the twentieth century's most significant series of portraits. For everyone interested in the creative process it confirms that, in Laura Wilson's words, "much as all these photographs may appear to be moments that just occurred, they are finally, in varying degrees, works of the imagination."

“Rather than the proverbial melting pot, Wilson asks us to recognize a West that is at least a place where, against a backdrop of aridity and expansive space, diverse lives can and do coexist.” —John RohrbachRenowned photographer Laura Wilson has captured the majesty, as well as the tragedy, of her home region of Texas and the wider West for more than three decades. A former assistant to Richard Avedon, she has published her work to wide acclaim over the past twenty-five years. As seen in this extraordinary book, Wilson’s subjects range from legendary West Texas cattle ranches to impoverished Plains Indian reservations to lavish border-town cotillions. Also featured are compelling portraits of artists who are associated with the region, including Donald Judd, Ed Ruscha, and Sam Shepard.The unforgettable images in That Day, most of which are previously unpublished, tell sharply drawn stories of the people and places that have shaped, and continue to shape, the nation’s most dynamic and unyielding land. Text from Wilson’s journals accompanies the photographs, recalling her personal experiences behind the camera at the moment when a particular image was captured. With her incisive eye, Wilson casts a fresh light on the West—a topic of enduring fascination.Published in association with the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist UniversityExhibition Schedule:Amon Carter Museum of American Art(09/05/15–02/14/16)

Intimate photo essays of thirty-eight important writers, including Margaret Atwood, Gabriel García Márquez, Zadie Smith, and Colm Tóibín  “We’ve all seen writers on the dust jackets of their books. These portraits, it seemed to me, generally failed to convey either character or personality. Writers deserve better. I wanted to make compelling pictures that would stick in the mind’s eye.”—Laura Wilson  Inspired by the classic photo essays that once appeared in Life magazine, renowned photographer Laura Wilson presents dynamic portraits of thirty-eight internationally acclaimed writers. Through her photos and accompanying texts, she gives us vivid, revealing glimpses into the everyday lives of such luminaries as Rachel Cusk, Edwidge Danticat, David McCullough, Haruki Murakami, and the late Carlos Fuentes and Seamus Heaney, among others. Margaret Atwood works in her garden. Tim O’Brien performs magic tricks for his family. And Louise Erdrich, who contributes an introduction, speaks with customers in her Minneapolis bookstore. At once inviting and poignant, the book reflects on writing and photography’s shared concerns with invention, transformation, memory, and preservation. With 220 duotone images, The Writers: Portraits will appeal to fans of literature and photography alike.  Published in association with the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin  Exhibition Schedule:  Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at AustinAugust 26, 2022–January 1, 2023

Discover a vital source of volunteers for your organizationBy the year 2020, there will be 65 million people aged 65 and over living in the United Statesa new generation of active older adults expecting to use the expertise, experience, and life skills they’ve gained to make valuable contributions to society in their retirement years. Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation presents the latest research findings and evaluation studies that help promote a thorough understanding of the programs, policies, and civic opportunities available to people aged 50 and older. This unique book is an essential resource for nonprofit organizations seeking to meet their needs with a generation of volunteers eager to explore new options, work in new capacities, and continue lifelong learning.More than any previous generation, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are defying stereotypes about aging while seeking new and meaningful lifestyles. Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation defines an agenda for future policy, research, and practice to help reverse the well-documented decline in civic engagement in the United States, providing older Americans with opportunities to have an impact in their local, national, and global communities. The book’s contributors focus attention on the value of civic engagement in creating vital social capital and social networks.Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation examines:current issues and trends in civic engagement results from senior corps. examinations expanding youth service concepts lifelong learning institutes the relationship between civic engagement and leadership issues in elder service and volunteerism outcomes of a national agenda setting meeting intergenerational relations and civic engagementCivic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation is an important source of information for anyone working with nonprofit, government, and corporate organizations concerned with public policy, community affairs, volunteerism, research, practice, and education.

Discover a vital source of volunteers for your organizationBy the year 2020, there will be 65 million people aged 65 and over living in the United Statesa new generation of active older adults expecting to use the expertise, experience, and life skills they’ve gained to make valuable contributions to society in their retirement years. Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation presents the latest research findings and evaluation studies that help promote a thorough understanding of the programs, policies, and civic opportunities available to people aged 50 and older. This unique book is an essential resource for nonprofit organizations seeking to meet their needs with a generation of volunteers eager to explore new options, work in new capacities, and continue lifelong learning.More than any previous generation, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) are defying stereotypes about aging while seeking new and meaningful lifestyles. Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation defines an agenda for future policy, research, and practice to help reverse the well-documented decline in civic engagement in the United States, providing older Americans with opportunities to have an impact in their local, national, and global communities. The book’s contributors focus attention on the value of civic engagement in creating vital social capital and social networks.Civic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation examines:current issues and trends in civic engagement results from senior corps. examinations expanding youth service concepts lifelong learning institutes the relationship between civic engagement and leadership issues in elder service and volunteerism outcomes of a national agenda setting meeting intergenerational relations and civic engagementCivic Engagement and the Baby Boomer Generation is an important source of information for anyone working with nonprofit, government, and corporate organizations concerned with public policy, community affairs, volunteerism, research, practice, and education.

Spectatorship, Embodiment and Physicality in the Contemporary Mutilation Film explores 'physical spectatorship': the representation of mutilation on the screen and the physical responses this evokes. The book is organised around the study of a series of dynamic engagements that reconfigure the film-viewer relationship.

Spectatorship, Embodiment and Physicality in the Contemporary Mutilation Film explores 'physical spectatorship': the representation of mutilation on the screen and the physical responses this evokes. The book is organised around the study of a series of dynamic engagements that reconfigure the film-viewer relationship.

Achieve your survey goals by empowering your survey respondents. 

Too often, surveys are designed for the analyst, rather than the respondent. This book challenges the status quo by putting respondents’ needs at the heart of survey development. It encourages you to stop, listen, and then design to improve response rates and collect high quality data.

Drawing on their experience at the UK Office for National Statistics, the authors:

Show you how to design better surveys by combining social research and user experience best practice. Equip you with the tools to design inclusive and accessible surveys. Enable you to overcome practical research problems, including managing participant recruitment, and working to any budget. Provide links to helpful web material and further reading as part of the book's online resources.

Promoting a new way to conceptualise and conduct survey design, this book expands your theoretical thinking and shows you, step-by-step, how to put it into practice.

Achieve your survey goals by empowering your survey respondents. 

Too often, surveys are designed for the analyst, rather than the respondent. This book challenges the status quo by putting respondents’ needs at the heart of survey development. It encourages you to stop, listen, and then design to improve response rates and collect high quality data.

Drawing on their experience at the UK Office for National Statistics, the authors:

Show you how to design better surveys by combining social research and user experience best practice. Equip you with the tools to design inclusive and accessible surveys. Enable you to overcome practical research problems, including managing participant recruitment, and working to any budget. Provide links to helpful web material and further reading as part of the book's online resources.

Promoting a new way to conceptualise and conduct survey design, this book expands your theoretical thinking and shows you, step-by-step, how to put it into practice.

1958: Notting Hill is sweltering in a heatwave. It's DI Stratton's new manor and a powder keg of racial tension. A rent collector is stabbed and a series of street fights between teddy boys and Caribbean immigrants sparks further unrest. Young runaway Irene, on the verge of prostitution, finds her loyalties lie on both sides of the fight. A race riot breaks out - the worst Britain has ever seen. Stratton must tread a path through the violence and prejudice to find the killer and save Irene before Notting Hill explodes.

A sudden death exposes three generations of family secrets in this gripping, atmospheric psychological thriller for fans of Clare Mackintosh, Belinda Bauer and B A Paris.Janice Keaton is living a quiet, easy life when a longed-for reunion with the daughter she gave up for adoption several decades earlier drags her into a lethal confrontation with her past.Did her brother, Dan, die a natural death? Is Joe, her former lover, really an acid casualty, or was there another reason for his abrupt withdrawal from public life? And what is her granddaughter, Molly, hiding?As she struggles to come to terms with a series of shocks, Janice realises that her recollections of the past hold a sinister secret - one with deadly consequences.And then Molly disappears...

Roaming Mexico is a captivating book of photographs by Laura Wilson that explore the people of the towns of Mexico's border regions, published to accompany a major exhibition at the Meadows Museum.Capturing the unique culture, grit, joy, and humanity of the towns of Mexico and the Texas border, this stunning book of photographs by Laura Wilson opens our eyes to a rarely seen part of the world. Intimate portrayals of village life, popular festivals, quinceañeras, cowboys, firebreathers, and captivating portraits illuminate a vibrant yet tenuous existence.The fascinating texts includes a conversation with the photographer that reveals her personal insights and experiences in the region. Featuring work drawn from 30 years of exploration in the area by the accomplished photographer, this fascinating volume is a valuable contribution to our understanding and awareness of an underappreciated way of life.