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The magazine seeks to present a generous but selective overview of the contemporary cultural scene in the USA and abroad.
The focus of the magazine is on contemporary Movies, Theatre, Music (Classical and Blues & Jazz), Travel, Books (reviews), Fiction (short stories & novels), Opera, Dance, and Human Interest. For further details, see below.
Publisher WILLARD MANUS is a Los Angeles-based novelist, playwright and journalist. He published two books recently: THIS WAY TO PARADISE--DANCING ON THE TABLES, a memoir of time spent in the Greek islands; and THE PIGSKIN RABBI, a comic novel about pro football. His other novels are THE FIXERS, THE FIGHTING MEN, CONNUBIAL BLISS and MOTT THE HOOPLE, the book from which the 70s British rock band took its name.
Manus has had numerous plays produced in Los Angeles, regionally and abroad.
He is also a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and has written on film for SIGHT & SOUND, FILMS IN REVIEW, and DAILY VARIETY. His freelance articles have appeared in such journals as NEW YORK TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, WASHINGTON POST, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, BOSTON GLOBE, HOLIDAY MAGAZINE, THE OBSERVER (U.K.), SUNDAY TIMES (U.K.), FINANCIAL POST (Canada), DIVE MAGAZINE, SCUBA WORLD, JAZZ RAG (U.K.) and many others. His short stories have been published in NEW LETTERS, CONFRONTATION, MEN ONLY and ARGOSY, among others. He served for four years as the southern California correspondent for PLAYBILL.COM
Assistant publisher Mavis Manus co-wrote the successful cookbook, THE
ART OF RUSSIAN CUISINE (Macmillan Co.) She writes a monthly human interest
column for the HELLENIC JOURNAL. She specializes in reviewing theater,
dance and classical music.
CONTENTS:
MOVIES: News & reviews; book reviews; occasional features & interviews.
THEATRE: Reviews and news from Los Angeles, New York and other cities;
book reviews; occasional features and interviews.
MUSIC: Classical news & reviews; Blues & Jazz news and reviews.
Occasional features and interviews.
TRAVEL: Articles on travel spots around the world. Special interests:
Greece & the Mediterranean; Europe; Caribbean & South America;
Freediving & Spearfishing; Jewish travel destinations.
BOOKS: News and reviews of new titles; occasional interviews and features.
FICTION: Original contemporary short stories.
OPERA: News and reviews; occasional interviews and features.
DANCE: News and reviews.
HUMAN INTEREST: Features, interviews and profiles.
MARKETPLACE: Books, videos and audio tapes by Willard Manus.
CONTRIBUTORS to recent issues of Lively Arts:
George Constantine is a professional writer and editor born in Los Angeles. George also lived and wrote in Fresno, California and in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. George is a part-time English professor at Los Angeles Pierce College. "Zandy" (Lively Arts March/April 2010) and "Impossible Places" (Lively Arts September/October 2009) are from his story-novel "The Autobiography of California".
Robert
Gardner
FILMMAKER: Clarence and Angel (2nd prize and Humanity Award)...
SCREENWRITER: Clarence and Angel, King James Version, Wedding Palace
(1st prize: Chinese Film Festival and Paramount CineGear Film Fest)
CREATED: LA Playwrights Lab
Cheryl Gougouris
Cheryl Gourgouris holds a master’s degree in psychology and organizational
development. During her career developing programs that protect and enhance
services to vulnerable children and families, Cheryl developed training
films and co-authored a book “ Group Self Structure A Way To Maximize
Human Potential”. In her retirement she is pursing her lifelong interest
in creative writing.
Barbara Grubmann
Barbara Bass-Grubman's first published letter was in the Bronx Home News
was about basketball and why it was not covered in the paper as much as
baseball. She was 15 at the time. As an adult, she 'graduated' to Letters
to the Editor in her favorite paper, The New York Times. Mostly, she writes
non-fiction, and the Bessie story was one of her first attempts at fiction.
She is now working on organizing her large file of writing and feels ,
" there has got to be a book in there somewhere."
Jim Inman
is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama, where he received a Master
of Fine Arts degree and the first 'Outstanding Actor of the Year' Award
ever to be conferred by Yale. His plays have brought him two Best Play
of the Year awards and as a writer for Dallas his work is known throughout
the world.
Michael N. Kalafatas is author of The Bellstone: The Greek Sponge
Divers of the Aegean, One American’s Journey Home and executive producer
of the documentary film “Pushing the Limits: The Story of Greek Sponge
Diving,” released in 2008 by Immersion Presents. Michael lives in
Wayland, Massachusetts, and regularly flies out of Logan Airport over
Winthrop Bay, scanning the mudflats for starlings.
Joan Marie Kessler (J. M. Kessler)
Her first two plays, Have A Nice Day and The Tin Heart, were the result
of the Los Angeles Playwrights Group Playwrights Workshop. She wrote the
radio play, A Rose By Any Other Name, for New Frequency: A Theater of
the Mind radio theater company, and is the author of the children’s
book The Squirrelly Nut Gig. She has a B. A. in Theatre Arts and a longing
to visit Greece.
Joseph Scott Kierland is a graduate of the University of Connecticut
and Yale Drama School, and has been playwright-in-residence at New York's
Lincoln Center, Brandeis University, and Los Angeles Actor's Theatre.
His plays have been produced around the country and in Europe, and he
has been published in Short Story International, Sgrafitto, and Arizona
Literary Review. Mr. Kierland was the founder of the successful Los Angeles
Playwright's Group and editor of their books, BEST ONE ACT PLAYS and SEX
IN THE AFTERNOON. He continues working in film and television and has
received awards from Cornell University, Chicago University, University
of Iowa and Yale University.
Norm Levine is a retired pharmacist where he wrote poetry in between labels. He has authored three books of poetry and more recently turned to prose. His third book of short essays, Now and Then Some, was published in 2015. His blogs can be found at normsnorms.blogspot.com/.
Dalia Miller is the former editor of Laografia: A Journal of the International Greek Folklore Society. She has made nearly 30 trips to Greece since her first visit in 1969.
Kip Miller
is a retired engineer living in southern California. He has enjoyed taking
travel photos for sixty years.
Robert Riche has published the novel "What Are We Doing in
Latin America? (A Novel About Connecticut)". His short stories have
appeared in Commentary and a number of literary magazines. His plays have
been performed off-off Broadway in New York, and in regional theaters
in Berkeley, Washington, Atlanta, and in Bristol, England. He has co-authored
one self-help book entitled "The Ten Most Troublesome Teen-Age Problems
(And How to Solve Them)", and he has had numerous comedy television
assignments. He writes periodically on food, wine and travel subjects.
He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Connecticut
Foundation for the Arts grant, Advanced Drama Research grant; and is a
winner of the prestigious Stanley Drama Award. He has also been a Breadloaf
Writers Conference scholar. He currently is finishing a new novel.
David Ray - DAVID RAY’s most recent publications are One Thousand
Years: Poems About the Holocaust (Timberline Press, 2004) and The Endless
Search: A Memoir (Soft Skull Press, 2003). Ray has received many awards
for his writing, including the William Carlos Williams Award (twice) from
the Poetry Society of America. He lives in Tucson, travels for readings
and workshops, and can be reached at www.davidraypoet.com
George Rosenfeld - When I joined the board of Odyssey House (a
large drug rehab agency in NYC) in 1997 I was intrigued by a facility
they ran on Randalls Island. The building had been built in the 1880s.
When I first saw it was called the MABON. It served as a clearing house
for incoming patients, some of whom stayed there and others were distributed
to other Odyssey facilities. My dream was that one day the state would
give us the entire building (we were only using one half of the facility,
the other half being in shambles) for our programs. In 2011 the state
gave Odyssey the building and 26.8 million dollars to refurbish the facility.That
restoration is near completion and has been named for me as the George
Rosenfeld Center for Recovery.
In
the 1980s I was Chairman of the Board of the Little Red School House,
a progressive school in Greenwich Village. Later I became a trustee of
the Village Nursing Home where I participated in the building of a HIV-AIDS
hospital on the Lower Eastside. As well I attended NYU where I got a Master's
degree in History. At the same time I tutored high school students in
a variety of subjects.I continue to do this. As ell I serve on the national
board of FairTest, an organization opposed to the overemphasis of high
stakes testing in American schools. Finally, I help administer a national
poetry contest known as the Lexi Rudnitsky Poetry Project.
My
business career was as a broker on the American Stock Exchange
Richmond
Shepard, New York correspondent for Lively-Arts.com, is co-publisher
of Performing Arts INSIDER, a professional newsletter that tells everything
coming into New York up to a year in advance. For more info on PAI, contact
totalpost@totaltheater.com.
Sidney Thompson is a writer from Omaha, Nebraska. She’s been
published in Idyllwild Arts literary magazine Parallax and best known
for her short story,‘What We Would Have,’ which was finalist
in the 2015 Faulkner Wisdom Competition for Short Story by a High School
Student. She is currently a Sophmore at Columbia College in Chicago’s
South Loop, working to graduate with a B.A. in Fiction Writing by the
spring of 2019.
Martin Tucker is editor-in-chief of the prize-winning literary
journal CONFRONTATION. He has published two collections of poetry, ATTENTION
SPANS and HOMES OF LOCKS AND MYSTERIES as well as several literary critical
studies, among them the highly praised LITERARY EXILE IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY. He is the editor of more than 20 volumes of literary encyclopedia
and has published reviews and essays in THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW,
THE NATION, THE COMMONWEAL, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE SATURDAY REVIEW, CHICAGO
REVIEW, EPOCH and elsewhere. He is also a playwright; four of his one-act
plays were recently produced in London.
