These days I'm shutting between Los Angeles and my new home in Cool, California--that's really the name of the town--where my husband (www.jimmycamp.com) and I do a lot of chores and eat a lot of BBQ. Things that get to me in a good way: Horses, books, baby goats, big dogs and a love of latin dancing I just can't shake
Music
Jimmy Camp; Lucinda Williams; Tom Waits; Joe Ely; Midnight Oil; Jimmy Sabater; Spanish Harlem Orchestra; Los Van Van; Albita; the Rev. Al Greene; Marvin Gaye; Willie Nelson; Johnny Cash; Mary J. Blige; Bruce Springsteen; T. Rex; Mojo Nixon; Earth, Wind & Fire; White Stripes; P.J. Harvey; Black Crowes; Soundgarden; Mike Miller and Sandra Tsing Loh on the fiddle; Elvis, Frankie Sinatra and Peggy Lee...and many more
Movies
Y Tu Mama Tambien; Habla Con Ella; Amor es Perros; Casablanca; It Happened One Night; Little Miss Sunshine; Pulp Fiction; Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman; The Exorcist; Unforgiven; The Magnificent Seven; The Wizard of Oz; Muriel's Wedding; Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Strictly Ballroom; Juno.
Television
Walter Mercado's two-minute spot on Univision's "Primier Impacto"; Jeopardy!; Project Runway (we all have our weaknesses); Big Love
Books
Robert Stone's Dog Soldiers; Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison; Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and The Road; Roddy Doyle's A Star Called Henry; Affliction by Russell Banks; All Things, All At Once by Lee K. Abbott; The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros; Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje; Postcards by Annie Proulx and the Complete Works of Flannery O'Connor; The Sportswriter by Richard Ford; Fugitive Pieces by Ann Michaels and The Hours by Michael Cunningham; V.S. Naipaul's Among the Believers; A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole; Binnie Kirshenbaum's An Almost Perfect Moment...not enough space for all the mighty works of the world
Heroes
Deanne Harris (my mom); Edward Albert; Joan Didion; Calamity Jane; librarians and indie bookstore owners the world over
About me:
At 16 I escaped the trailer in New Mexico (Lot #78), thanks to a scholarship that took me to Sydney, Australia. Later I received a fellowship to Paris, France, where I got a job writing and answering phones for a French heavy metal magazine (they needed someone who spoke "American"). After moving to L.A., I worked at such luminous publications as "Hospital Gift Shop Management" and "Nailpro" before writing my debut novel, Failing Paris (Toby Press). Thankfully the critics loved it (displaying "fierce control over her material, coupled with feeling and beauty of language," said the L.A. Times), and it nabbed finalist honors for the PEN West Fiction Award in 2000...Someone told me to "break a leg" and I did: The Portland Oregonian called my next book, the memoir Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life (Henry Holt& Co.), "witty, smart, droll, moving and always entertaining." It scored as a BookSense 76 pick. Lifetime Television snapped up the option for my most recent memoir, Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex and Salvation (Owl Books), but alas, spiked it, so now the script is searching for a home. I'm also co-editor, along with the brilliant Julianne Ortale, of the short story anthology, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles (Toby Press).
My work is anthologized in a few different places: My essay “By A Hair” comes out in the hotly anticipated antho Damage Control: The Beauticians, Therapists and Trainers Who Navigate Our Bodies (Avon Books, June 2007). Other collections that feature my work include Another City, edited by David Ulin; How We Live Our Yoga (Beacon Press); and Oprah Magazine’s Live Your Best Life (Oxmoor House).
My essays have appeared in a number of national publications, such as the Los Angeles Times, O (Oprah) Magazine, Ms., and Shape. As a freelance journalist, over the years my bylines have been regularly featured in InStyle, Glamour, SELF, Men's Health and a variety of other consumer magazines. I've also written for the stage, as a co-creator of the show "American Ese" with director Noah Blake.
I teach memoir and personal essay through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
Please check my website at www.samanthadunn.biz. (BTW, my author shot is by David Sobel; the b&w are shots by Lupe Fernandez)
Who I'd like to meet: Earnest Hemingway, Mata Hari and Lucille Ball...Fellow writers, aritsts, publishing denizen and professionals of all stripes would be nice, too
Hi Samantha, Nice to meet you and a happy new year. I'd also love to meet Lucille Ball, so if you ever reach her at a seance or bump into her at The Brown Derby, please let me know!
SAY WHAT??????!!!???? Congratulations, Samantha. I knew were a wonderful person the moment I came into your life (although briefly, and you will be a wonderful mother as well. That said, I was pissed at you for coming all the way to Warren and not stopping for five minutes to say hello... I would have introduced you to my kids and, if it was one of those moments, you would have wondered what you were in for. Life is good then, I guess. So I'm happy for you.
Truthfully, Sam. I'm still not sure who I'm voting for. I am a Republican, but that has never swayed me to an all-party vote. If Tina Fey was running, I would vote for her. I would probably vote for Jamie; he seems more intelligent than either candidate. No offense, Jamie.
To lighten it up a bit - remember when you tried to hook me up with Punky Brewster at a poetry reading? I tell that story all the time. You are a good cuz.
Continued... "Yes let's continue the national discussion about Governor Palin's clothes, Obama's 5th aunt twice removed, John McCain's brother Joe calling 911 in a traffic jam, Joe Biden's gaffs on Eisenhower and my personal favorite, Joe the Plumber! ........................................... My prediction is once again the American PEOPLE will get ripped off ala "Hanging Chad" Technique....with FEAR and PREJUDICE ahead by +7 leading to a McCain comeback." --------------------------------- Now me: And I'm a Republican who voted for George Bush because I'm a huge Yankee fan and he threw a ceremonial fastball for a perfect strike after 9/11 and before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series.
I did not author this, just found it to be interesting:
"...it's amazing that for the past 8 years we have had:
1. Crash of the Stock Market, with our Financial System reflecting lows not seen since the great Depression
2. Our Political Standing in the World of Nations eroded to a Nation that goes it alone, to one that promotes Torture and operates "In the Shadows" as Dick Cheney once put it...with fighting WARS on multiple front...bleeding precious AMERICAN Blood both Blue and Red
3. The largest Goverment we have seen in the Last 50 years
4. A Goverment that has slowly chipped away at American Civil Liberties in the name of "The War on Terroism". While simultaneously colluding power to the Executive Branch and using Attorney Generals to strip Americans of their precious Civil Rights
5. An Administration and REPUBLICAN Party that inherited a budget surplus and 8 years later leave 2 generations of National Debt
6. A Goverment Policy that promotes the Study of CREATIONISM...that cast Science as some sort of sham for eluding to the fact that the Earth is more than 4000 yrs old and where "No Child Gets Left Behind"...why take logic into consideration and continue to allow the Neocons and "conservatives" to push the agenda for our Country
7. That Wall Street is more important than Main Street were the cost of a Gallon of Gas is more than a Gallon of Milk...where the Exxon Mobils of the World once again post Record Breaking Profits and American 401ks are at Record lows and Home FORCLOSURES and Unemployment are reaching all time highs
8. And one of the glorious high lights of this Administrations Rule " A little Hurricane called Katrina" that wiped out a large portion of the Gulf Coast, leaving our response to that of 3rd World Country with dead bodies piling up to make a monumental "Super Dome" alter of disgrace!"
What's going on between you and Jamie? There is good from both socialistic and capitalistic ideals, and there is bad. But why do people so quickly label Obama a socialist and McCain and capitalist? I have seen nothing to suggest one is all socialist or all capitalist. I wish I could take them both out to dinner (they have to pay), listen intently to their visions, but... like everyone else, I have to change poopy diapers and read poopy copy every day and every night and I can't, nor can anyone, be completely informed. I'll just do what everyone else most definitely will do, make my best guesstimate, with a slanting bias toward the candidate who tugs at my soul during the Monday Night Football interviews, and, if I'm still not completely sure, I'll vote for the man with the hottest vice presidential candidate. You can say whatever you want, but neither one of us knows if whoever is elected will blow up the Earth. - Cuz P.S. McCain probably isn't a homophobe, and Obama probably isn't a rock star, and you're not a racist if you criticize him, though people may most definitely sound like it at time while driving through the woods in parts of ^Y%^$@%^@&%@ P.P.S. What did I just say?
I don't fault you for your ignorance nor do I in the way you decide to vote.....but don't insult me cousin! I'm far from dumb thank you. I think at this point, it is best if you keep your views to yourself
don't tell me you've fallen hypnotized to the mesmerizing stage presence of the anti-christ himself. If he wins, we can look forward to the new U.S.S.A. United Socialist States of America. Please, #1, I am Republican, #2, even if I was a democrat, I would still vote for McCain.
At 16 I escaped the trailer in New Mexico (Lot #78), thanks to a scholarship that took me to Sydney, Australia. Later I received a fellowship to Paris, France, where I got a job writing and answering phones for a French heavy metal magazine (they needed someone who spoke "American"). After moving to L.A., I worked at such luminous publications as "Hospital Gift Shop Management" and "Nailpro" before writing my debut novel, Failing Paris (Toby Press). Thankfully the critics loved it (displaying "fierce control over her material, coupled with feeling and beauty of language," said the L.A. Times), and it nabbed finalist honors for the PEN West Fiction Award in 2000...Someone told me to "break a leg" and I did: The Portland Oregonian called my next book, the memoir Not By Accident: Reconstructing a Careless Life (Henry Holt& Co.), "witty, smart, droll, moving and always entertaining." It scored as a BookSense 76 pick. Lifetime Television snapped up the option for my most recent memoir, Faith in Carlos Gomez: A Memoir of Salsa, Sex and Salvation (Owl Books), but alas, spiked it, so now the script is searching for a home. I'm also co-editor, along with the brilliant Julianne Ortale, of the short story anthology, Women on the Edge: Writing from Los Angeles (Toby Press).
My work is anthologized in a few different places: My essay “By A Hair” comes out in the hotly anticipated antho Damage Control: The Beauticians, Therapists and Trainers Who Navigate Our Bodies (Avon Books, June 2007). Other collections that feature my work include Another City, edited by David Ulin; How We Live Our Yoga (Beacon Press); and Oprah Magazine’s Live Your Best Life (Oxmoor House).
My essays have appeared in a number of national publications, such as the Los Angeles Times, O (Oprah) Magazine, Ms., and Shape. As a freelance journalist, over the years my bylines have been regularly featured in InStyle, Glamour, SELF, Men's Health and a variety of other consumer magazines. I've also written for the stage, as a co-creator of the show "American Ese" with director Noah Blake.
I teach memoir and personal essay through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
Please check my website at www.samanthadunn.biz. (BTW, my author shot is by David Sobel; the b&w are shots by Lupe Fernandez)
