Show notes
Do you want to learn more about SF?
Have you been caught up in the whimsical nature of the city of San Francisco?
Join us for a conversation w/ author Gary Kamiya & Artist Paul Madonna about the beautiful city of San Francisco & their book the Spirits of San Francisco - Voyages Through the Unknown City.
About Gary Kamiya:
I was born in Oakland, grew up in Berkeley and have lived in San Francisco since 1971. I received my BA and MA in English literature from UC Berkeley, where I won the Mark Schorer Citation. I was a co-founder and longtime executive editor of the groundbreaking web site Salon.com, where I reported from the Middle East, covered three Olympics, and wrote about politics, pop culture, literature, art, music and sports. Until March 2018 I was the executive editor of San Francisco Magazine, where I wrote award-winning features about the tech-driven transformation of San Francisco, homelessness, the Tenderloin, the injection drug crisis, the waterfront, the new Museum of Modern Art, the controversy over the canonization of Father Junipero Serra, and legalized marijuana, among other subjects.
My first book, Shadow Knight: The Secret War Against Hitler, was a critically-acclaimed narrative history of Britain's top-secret Special Operations Executive. My second book, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, was awarded the 2013 Northern California Book Award in creative nonfiction and has sold more than 50,000 copies. My local history column, "Portals of the Past," runs every other Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle. My work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, ArtForum, Sports Illustrated, Mother Jones, and many other publications and has been widely anthologized, including in The Best African-American Essays 2010, The New Harvard Literary History of the United States, and the Longman Reader. I have been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Ron Ross Founder's Award by the San Francisco History Association and the Presidio Historical Association Award. I have appeared as an expert on-camera source in numerous documentaries, including a forthcoming PBS 4-hour documentary on William Randolph Hearst, Jim Yager and Peter Stein’s forthcoming Moving San Francisco (about the past, present and future of transportation in San Francisco) and two of their previous documentaries, the Emmy Award-winningWater from the Wilderness (on Hetch Hetchy) and The People's Palace (on City Hall), Michael House's I Remember Herb Caen, and others. I live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco.
About Paul Madonna:
Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and best-selling author whose unique blend of drawing and storytelling has been heralded as an “all new art form.”
Paul is the creator of the series All Over Coffee, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years, and the author of five books, including the Emit Hopper Mystery Series. His book Everything is its own reward won the 2011 NCBA Award for best book.
Paul’s work ranges from novels to cartoons to large-scale public murals and can be found internationally in print as well as in galleries and museums, including the Oakland Museum of California, the William Blake Association in France, and the San Francisco International Airport.
Paul was a founding editor for therumpus.net, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco, and frequently lectures on creative practice. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD magazine.
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