Authors and Artists

Holly Barnet-Sanchez ’69 and her co-author, Tim Drescher, spent 12 years researching, writing, and editing Give Me Life: Iconography and Identity in East LA Murals (University of New Mexico Press, 2016). Chicanismo, the idea of what it means to be Chicano, was born in the 1970s, when grass-roots activists, academics, and artists joined forces in the civil rights movimiento that spread new ideas about Mexican American history and identity. The community murals those artists painted in the barrios of East Los Angeles were a powerful part of that cultural vitality, and these artworks have been an important feature of Los Angeles culture ever since. This book offers detailed analyses of individual East Los Angeles murals, sets them in social context, and explains how they were produced. The authors, leading experts on mural art, use a distinctive methodology, analyzing the art from aesthetic, political, and cultural perspectives to show how murals and graffiti reflected and influenced the Chicano civil rights movement.

David Hechler ’72, an author and editor-in-chief of the legal magazine The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, published In Good Hands about a South Carolina day care in which two infants died under mysterious circumstances. His book was honored this year by the American Society of Journalists and Authors as the best work of general nonfiction published in 2016. He followed the twists and turns of what proved to be a medical and psychological mystery and also focused on the challenges parents face when trying to ensure that their children in day care are safe. The book is available as a Kindle book on Amazon.

Jackie Weissman ’92 wrote “Parenting Outside the Mainstream: Indie Rocker Moms,” a chapter in the anthology Music of Motherhood: History, Healing, and Activism (Demeter Press, 2017). She describes her work making Rock N Roll Mamas, a feature-length documentary about three indie rockers who strive to follow their creative dreams and raise their children. Weissman is also executive director of Oregon Doc Camp, a retreat for experienced documentary filmmakers. Doc Camp is currently embarking on its fifth year. 

Laura Ruth Johnson ’92 wrote Community-Based Qualitative Research: Approaches for Education and the Social Sciences (SAGE Publications, Inc., 2017).