Lauren Kessler – författare

An award-winning author's journey to break out of the expectations of midlife and reclaim the daring of her girlhood by dancing in the world's most popular ballet, The Nutcracker, with a professional company.Like generations of little girls, Lauren Kessler fell in love with ballet the first time she saw The Nutcracker, and from that day, at age five, she dreamed of becoming a ballerina. But when she was twelve, her very famous ballet instructor crushed those dreams-along with her youthful self-assurance-and she stepped away from the barre.Fast forward four decades. Lauren-suddenly, powerfully, itchingly restless at midlife-embarks on a "Transcontinental Nutcracker Binge Tour," where attending a string of performances in Chicago, New York, Boston, and San Francisco reignites her love affair with the ballet-and fuels her girlhood dream.What ensues is not only a story about The Nutcracker itself, but also an inside look at the seemingly romantic-but oh-so-gritty-world of ballet, about all that happens away from the audience's eye that precedes the magic on stage. It is a tale told from the perspective of someone who not only loves it, but is also seeking to live it. Lauren's quest to dance The Nutcracker with the Eugene Ballet Company tackles the big issues: fear, angst, risk, resilience, the refusal to "settle in" to midlife, the refusal to become yet another Invisible Woman. It is also a very funny, very real look at what it's like to push yourself further than you ever thought you could go-and what happens when you get there.

Pancho Barnes was a force of nature, a woman who lived a big, messy, colorful, unconventional life. She ran through three fortunes, four husbands, and countless lovers. She outflew Amelia Earhart, outsmarted Howard Hughes, outdrank the Mexican Army, and out- maneuvered the U.S. government. In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, award-winning author Lauren Kessler tells the story of a high-spirited, headstrong woman who was proud of her successes, unabashed by her failures, and the architect of her own legend.         Florence "Pancho" Barnes was a California heiress who inherited a love of flying from her grandfather, a pioneer balloonist in the Civil War. Faced with a future of domesticity and upper-crust pretensions, she ran away from her responsibilities as wife and mother to create her own life. She cruised South America. She trekked through Mexico astride a burro. She hitchhiked halfway across the United States. Then, in the late 1920s, she took to the skies, one of a handful of female pilots.         She was a barnstormer, a racer, a cross-country flier, and a Hollywood stunt pilot. She was, for a time, "the fastest woman on earth," flying the fastest civilian airplane in the world. She was an intimate of movie stars, a script doctor for the great director Erich von Stroheim, and, later in life, a drinking buddy of the supersonic jet jockey Chuck Yeager. She ran a wild and wildly successful desert watering hole known as the Happy Bottom Riding Club, the raucous bar and grill depicted in The Right Stuff.         In The Happy Bottom Riding Club, Lauren Kessler presents a portrait, both authoritative and affectionate, of a woman who didn''t play by women''s rules, a woman of large appetites--emotional, financial, and sexual--who called herself "the greatest conversation piece that ever existed."From the Hardcover edition.

The Dissident Press is an excellent contribution to the literature on the American mass media. Its greatest value is in providing a thread of continuity across time and among individuals who have created alternative publications. --Edwin Emery, University of Minnesota, and coauthor of The Press and America

Stubborn Twig is a classic American story, a story of immigrants making their way in a new land. It is a living work of social history that rings with the power of truth and the drama of fiction, a moving saga about the challenges of becoming an American. Masuo Yasui traveled from Japan across the other Oregon Trail the one that spanned the Pacific Ocean?in 1903. Like most immigrants, he came with big dreams and empty pockets. Working on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Hood River, Oregon, he opened a store, raised a large family, and became one of the area's most successful orchardists.As Masuo broke the race barrier in the local business community, his American-born children broke it in school, scouts and sports, excelling in most everything they tried. For the Yasuis? first-born son, the constraints and contradictions of being both Japanese and American led to tragedy. But his seven brothers and sisters prevailed, becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and farmers. It was a classic tale of the American dream come true?until December 7, 1941, changed their lives forever.The Yasuis were among the more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry along the West Coast who were forced from their homes and interned in vast inland ?relocation camps.? Masuo was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his family was shamed and broken. Yet the Yasuis endured, as succeeding generations took up the challenge of finding their identity as Americans. Stubborn Twig is their story, story at once tragic and triumphant, one that bears eloquent witness to both the promise and the peril of America.

A veteran journalist navigates the mother-daughter relationship at its most crucial moment With the eye of a reporter, the curiosity of an anthropologist, and the open (and sometimes wounded) heart of a mother, award-winning author Lauren Kessler embeds herself in her about-to-be-teenage daughter''s life. In seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms, at home, online, at the mall, and at summer camp, Kessler observes, investigates, chronicles- and participates in-the life of a twenty-first-century teen. As she begins to better understand and appreciate her mercurial daughter, their relationship-at first a mirror of the author''s difficult relationship with her own mother-lurches in new directions. With the help of a resident teen expert (her daughter), as well as teachers, doctors, therapists, and other mothers, Kessler illuminates the age-old struggle from both sides, gracefully interweaving personal experience with journalistic inquiry. Funny, poignant, and insightful, My Teenage Werewolf explores the fascinating and scary world of today''s teen as it comes to grips with the single most important relationship in a woman''s life.

Previously published in Hardcover as Dancing With Rose One journalist''s riveting and surprisingly hopeful in-the-trenches view of Alzheimer''s Nearly five million people in the United States are living with Alzheimer''s. Like many children of Alzheimer''s sufferers, Lauren Kessler, an accomplished journalist, was devastated by the disease that seemed to erase her mother''s identity even before claiming her life. But suppose people with Alzheimer''s are not slates wiped blank. Suppose they experience friendship and loss, romance and jealousy, joy and sorrow? To better understand this debilitating condition, Kessler enlists as a bottom-of-the-rung caregiver at an Alzheimer''s facility and learns lessons that challenge what we think we know about the disease. A compelling, clear-eyed, and emotionally resonant narrative, Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer''s offers a new optimistic look at what the disease can teach us and a much-needed tonic for those faced with providing care for someone they love.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A Grip of Time (prison slang for a very long sentence behind bars) takes readers into a world most know little about—a maximum-security prison—and into the minds and hearts of the men who live there. These men, who are serving out life sentences for aggravated murder, join a fledgling Lifers' Writing Group started by award-winning author Lauren Kessler. Over the course of three years, meeting twice a month, the men reveal more and more about themselves, their pasts, and the alternating drama and tedium of their incarcerated lives. As they struggle with the weight of their guilt and wonder if they should hope for a future outside prison walls, Kessler struggles with the fiercely competing ideas of rehabilitation and punishment, forgiveness and blame that are at the heart of the American penal system. Gripping, intense, and heartfelt, A Grip of Time: When Prison Is Your Life shows what a lifetime with no hope of release looks like up-close.

“The book provides insight into life inside a maximum-security prison while illuminating the benefits of the craft of writing. . . . compassionate.” —Publishers WeeklyA Grip of Time (prison slang for a very long sentence behind bars) takes readers into a world most know little about—a maximum-security prison—and into the minds and hearts of the men who live there. These men, who are serving out life sentences for aggravated murder, join a fledgling Lifers’ Writing Group started by award-winning author Lauren Kessler. Over the course of three years, meeting twice a month, the men reveal more and more about themselves, their pasts, and the alternating drama and tedium of their incarcerated lives. As they struggle with the weight of their guilt and wonder if they should hope for a future outside prison walls, Kessler struggles with the fiercely competing ideas of rehabilitation and punishment, forgiveness and blame that are at the heart of the American penal system. Gripping, intense, and heartfelt, A Grip of Time: When Prison Is Your Life shows what a lifetime with no hope of release looks like up-close.“Takes us on a compelling, intensely personal journey into the rarely glimpsed end point of our justice system . . . What dignity, meaning, and success these lifers achieve despite the system’s design.” —Edward Humes, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t“A keenly observed and deeply felt narrative . . . so original and so compelling . . . it wouldn’t let me go.” —Alex Kotlowitz, national bestselling author of An American Summer