My first book was a humble print run of one by a small press just outside of Pittsburgh. Mr. Stubbs Strikes Again told the story of a misguided bear who inadvertently solved crimes and then ate the bronze medals he was given, having mistaken them for chocolate every time. As the nine-year-old proprietor of this press, the tools of my trade were construction paper and pencil. Mr. Stubbs may not have been very bright, but he knew what he loved and he had a strong sense of justice.
As a teenager, my grandfather, who was many things – a professor at the Annenberg School, a poet, a critic, an artist – taught me the somewhat earth-shattering news that not all poetry need rhyme. But as an angst-riddled teenager, I needed the structure of the rhyme. Without the rhyme, I discovered, I had no poetry.
So I turned to fiction instead. A thick book called Queenie was an early favorite, as were the stolen Harlequin romances from my girlfriend’s mother’s extensive collection. The Harlequins stunted me for a few years as I’d dropped out of high school by then and was earning my keep at a Mexican restaurant called Casa Lupita, where I served as busboy, hostess, or dishwasher, depending on the number of employee no-shows we had. My only literary memory from this period was Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. (Margaret should have asked me.)
After a few years of too many nights in my blue Oldsmobile Omega or on friend’s couches, I begged an administrator at a small college outside of Chicago to let me in. He did. Soon, I was onto Anne Tyler and Sue Miller, and then to graduate school in Boston where I studied – if such a thing can be studied – fiction. And then advanced fiction. But what I really studied were the writers, those who struggled but kept at it day after day after day. Emerson College taught me the same thing I’d learned in the time of the blue Olds: I could handle the struggle.
As a writer and journalist, I’ve traveled all over the world, from Che’s widow’s house in Cuba, to the Dalai Lama’s monastery in India, to zero gravity in Houston, from the backstage hallways at a Kiss concert to the shattered coastline of post-tsunami Indonesia, to the dark mud rooms of a middle eastern women’s prison. My favorite stories are scenes in my memory…a brilliant geographer from New Mexico searching for a lost American highway, a collection of homeless teenagers scattered across the United States, a spooky mountain in Vietnam searching for fallen soldiers.
I’ve written for some great magazines: the New York Times magazine, the New Republic, Men’s Journal, Glamour, Jane, Travel & Leisure, Slate, Salon… And I’ve contributed to some great radio programs: This American Life, Marketplace, All Things Considered. In 2006, I won an Overseas Press Club award for a radio piece on This American Life. In 2007, my first book—FUGITIVE DENIM: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade—will be published. It’s a narrative look at how people live while they’re trying to survive global trade rules. These days, I divide my time between the States and Cambodia.
I’ve learned that in my own writing there are two kinds of stories I love: those of salvation and those of searching. Put another way, you might say I learned most of what I’d ever need to know about writing—and about a boundless passion for chocolate—from Mr. Stubbs.
Literary Representation: Susan Ramer Don Congdon Associates 156 5th Avenue, Suite 625 New York, NY 10010 212.645.1229 sramer@doncongdon.com
For publicity concerning Fugitive Denim: Samantha Choy WW Norton 500 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor New York, NY 10110 212.790.9407 schoy@wwnorton.com
http://www.thisamericanlife.com/ http://www.marketplace.org/ http://www.wwnorton.com/ http://www.believermag.com/ http://www.radiodiaries.org/ http://hearingvoices.com/ http://www.studiorose.com/ http://www.kriswerksphoto.com/ http://www.asiaphotos.net/ http://www.tedconover.com/ http://www.robwalker.net/ http://www.gayleforman.com/ http://www.thegeniusfactory.net/ http://www.susanorlean.com/ http://www.johnmcphee.com/ http://www.gladwell.com/ http://www.markfiore.com/
FUGITIVE DENIM: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade By Rachel Louise Snyder From Azerbaijan to New York City, a human-scale view of global trade
In the business of making and selling clothes, “Made In” labels do precious little to convey the constellation of treaties, countries and people at work in the assembly of a simple pair of jeans. In Fugitive Denim journalist Rachel Louise Snyder reports from the far reaches of this multi-billion dollar industry in search of the real people who make your clothes. In Azerbaijan she meets Mehman, a cotton classer, Ganira, a cotton picker, and Vasif, a cotton gin owner. A trip to Italy brings her the denim designers Pascal and Ariana. The factories of Cambodia produce Nat and Ry, women from the countryside who now live in the city of Phnom Penh. In New York we find Rogan and Scott, business partners who eventually team up with Bono and his wife to launch the Edun clothing line. Throughout the book, Snyder reveals the often obscure links between people from wildly different cultures and personal situations. At the same time, she investigates the manufacturing process itself, considering the feasibility of organic cotton, analyzing the environmental effects of dyes and exploring the regulations that govern factories. In a disarming and humorous voice, she ponders questions of equity, sweatshops and corporate social responsibility through narratives of individual people, making an often academic subject accessible and compelling. Neither polemic nor prescription, Fugitive Denim captures what it means to be at work in the world in the twenty-first century. http://www.amazon.com/Fugitive-Denim-Moving-People-Borderless/dp/0393061809/ref=sr_1_1/103-9613516-0996601?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180933268&sr=1-1.
NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE“Can Poor People Be Taught to Save?” April 2007 NEW REPUBLIC"Ashes to Ashes" January 2005 JANE"They Sterilized Us" August 2000 "Thirty Year Old Grannies" March 2001 GLAMOUR "In Afghanistan, Women Speak Again. To Old Truths" December 2002 "Shunned and Scarred For Life" February 2005 AMERICAN HERITAGE "MIA”, Feb/March 2005 "Camino Real, Seeking the Soul of America’s First Superhighway" April 2004 EVE "The Sixth Sense" October 2001 "A Walk in the Woods" April 2002 REDBOOK "My Mother’s Ghost" April 2007
Salon.com “Sue Hendrickson, A Tale of Two Sues” 1999 “Carole King, Will You Still Love Me?” 1999 “Cuba's Millennium: Junker (part 1) 2000 “Cuba's Millennium: Viva la Evolucion (part 2)” 2000 “Brian Wilson, He Still Gets Around” 2000 “Paul Stanley, Kissing The Ring” 2000 “Hurricanes and Hope in Honduras” 1998 “Laughing With The Dalai Lama” 1999 “My Lunch With Ira Glass” 1999 “Uninformed Consent” 2000 Slate.com Dispatches from Cambodia: “The Politics of Shopping” 2004 “Gathering The Evidence” 2004 “Gun-Shopping in Phnom Penh” 2004 “Guns and Art” 2004 Dispatches from the Tsunami. Aceh, Indonesia: “Tryptophan Tours” The Bell Jar 2005
NPR's "All Things Considered" Grandmother A lost mother's mother Ian The story of a missing friend View from Abroad Sept 11, from London
PRI's "This American Life "Dreams of Distant Factorie Winner of the Overseas Press Club Award, one small country tries to take on Congress. Sort of
APM's "Marketplace" The Adapter If MacGyver worked for a charity..., Space Food Gnocchi goes zero gravity , Recycling Chic These aren't Grandma's clothes anymore...
WBEZ - Chicago Public Radio A Little Milano A count in Verona on Valentine's Day... , Wrigley's, Singapore Style The sound of gum being chewed in Singapore , Dan Ryan in Singapore A little-known politician inspires a city-state , Poetry Slam Goes Global What one former Naperville resident brought to Bangkok
3 December 2007 Labyrinth Books 536 W. 112th Street New York City, NY 212.865.1588 (Visit Labyrinth's Website)
5 December 2007 Odyssey Bookshop 9 College Street South Hadley, Massachusetts 413.534.7307 http://www.odysseybks.com/
7 December 2007 Dire Literary Series The Out of the Blue Art Gallery 106 Prospect Street Cambridge, Massachusetts http://www.direreader.com/
11 December 2007 Border's Books 612 E. Liberty Street Ann Arbor, MI 734.668.2455 (Visit the store's website)
Tentative Appearances: 6 December 2007 Emerson College Boston, MA
10 December 2007 Brookline Booksmith Boston, MA
12 December 2007 DePaul University Chicago, IL
More to come soon. Meanwhile...
Listen to new radio stories:
16 August - Marketplace. Meet Cambodia's Silk Empress: Chanta Nguon (Listen Here)
22 August - All Things Considered. Cambodia's Tenor Opera Sings Again. (Listen Here)
28 August - Marketplace. Meet Cigar Jimmy -in Singapore.