Melissa Holbrook Pierson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | December 14, 1957 [1] Akron, Ohio |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Citizenship | American |
| Education | A.B. Vassar College 1980 M.A. Columbia University 1984 [1] |
| Notable works | The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles |
| Website | |
| www | |
Melissa Holbrook Pierson (born December 14, 1957) [1] is a writer and essayist of non-fiction.
Pierson was born in Akron, Ohio. She attended Vassar College, receiving her BA in English Literature in 1980. Her MA, also in English Literature, was awarded in 1984 by Columbia University. She is a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast and this is reflected in many of her books. Her works are often explorations of personal experience, extended into general social commentary and history. She is a longtime book, film, and photography critic, and reviewed film on video for Entertainment Weekly, 1990 - 1999.
When asked in an interview, "Do you consider yourself a travel writer, a kind of 'place writer', a nature writer, or—" Pierson answered, "All of those things. I don't think of myself as fitting into a category. But I had to be careful in all of my books not to repeat things, because I have these ideas, and though the subjects were disparate, the same idea would come up through different portals." [2]
The Place You Love is Gone was described by Anthony Swofford in The New York Times Book Review as "the punk rock girl sitting in the rear pews at church, offering a counter narrative: what she says about the patriarchy and the raping of the land (and the Indians and dairy farmers and denizens of small towns in upstate New York) is true but the priests (elected politicians and water managers and ambitious city planners) wish her parents would drag the girl home; the organ player pipes louder in order to drown the punk's anti-establishment rant." [3]
Rice burner is a pejorative term originally applied to Japanese motorcycles and which later expanded to include Japanese cars or any East Asian-made vehicles. Variations include rice rocket, referring most often to Japanese superbikes, rice machine, rice grinder or simply ricer.
Condé Nast is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast (1873–1942), and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.
Ars Technica is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games.
Mary Roach is an American author specializing in popular science and humor. She has published six New York Times bestsellers: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (2003), Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (2005), Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (2008), Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (2010), Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal (2013), and Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War (2016).
Michael Monroe Lewis is an American author and financial journalist. He has also been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair since 2009, writing mostly on business, finance, and economics. He is known for his nonfiction work, particularly his coverage of financial crises and behavioral finance.
Susan Wise Bauer is an American author, English instructor of writing and American literature at The College of William and Mary, and founder of Well-Trained Mind Press.
Linda K. Hogan is a poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She is currently the Chickasaw Nation's Writer in Residence. Hogan is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. She lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.
Motorcycle touring is a format of tourism that involves a motorcycle. It has been a subject of note since at least 1915.
Gillian Conoley is an American poet. Conoley serves as a professor and poet-in-residence at Sonoma State University.
Lucy Sante is a Belgium-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Her books include Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (1991). She lived as a male until announcing in September 2021 that she was transitioning to female. She wrote on her Instagram account: "Yes, this is me, and yes, I am transitioning.... You can call me Lucy ...and my pronoun, thankyouverymuch, is she."
The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry is an anthology of two volumes edited by Jahan Ramazani, Richard Ellmann (1918–1987), and Robert O'Clair.
Rebecca Wolff is a poet, fiction writer, and the editor and creator of both Fence Magazine and Fence Books.
Marilyn Chin (陈美玲) is a prominent Chinese American poet, writer, activist, and feminist, as well as an editor and Professor of English. She is well-represented in major canonical anthologies and textbooks and her work is taught all over the world. Marilyn Chin's work is a frequent subject of academic research and literary criticism. Marilyn Chin has read her poetry at the Library of Congress.
Ann Hood is an American novelist and short story writer; she has also written nonfiction. The author of fourteen novels, four memoirs, a short story collection, a ten book series for middle readers and one young adult novel. Her essays and short stories have appeared in many journals, magazines, and anthologies, including The Paris Review, Ploughshares,, and Tin House. Hood is a regular contributor to The New York Times' Op-Ed page, Home Economics column. Her most recent work is "Fly Girl: A Memoir," published with W.W. Norton and Company in 2022.
The Daimler Reitwagen or Einspur was a motor vehicle made by Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in 1885. It is widely recognized as the first motorcycle. Daimler is often called "the father of the motorcycle" for this invention. Even when the steam powered two-wheelers that preceded the Reitwagen, the Michaux-Perreaux and Roper of 1867–1869, and the 1884 Copeland, are considered motorcycles, it remains nonetheless the first gasoline internal combustion motorcycle, and the forerunner of all vehicles, land, sea and air, that use its overwhelmingly popular engine type.
Cipe Pineles was an Austrian-born graphic designer and art director who made her career in New York at such magazines as Seventeen, Charm, Glamour, House & Garden, Vanity Fair and Vogue. She was the first female art director of many major magazines, as well as being credited as the first person to bring fine art into mainstream mass-produced media. She married two prominent designers, twice widowed, and had two children and two grandchildren.
Clara Marian Wagner was one of the first documented woman motorcyclists, who became notable as an endurance racer and was sponsored by the Eclipse Machine Co., a bicycle company, for using its braking products.
Norton Anthology may refer to one of several literary anthologies published by W. W. Norton & Company.
Steven Lynn Thompson is an author, magazine journalist, historian of technology and former motorcycle racer.
Yolanda Edwards is an American writer, editor, and media executive. She is the former creative director of Conde Nast Traveler magazine, and is the founder and publisher of Yolo Journal. Edwards was also the former executive editor at Martha Stewart Living, Travel and lifestyle editor at Cookie magazine, and a photo editor at W magazine. Since leaving Condé Nast, her byline has also appeared in Domino magazine.