Robert zacks author biography outline
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Richard Zacks Interview
Richard Zacks
Interviewed by Andrew Duncan
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Richard Zacks is the author of History Laid Bare and An Underground Education. A graduate of the University of Michigan and the Columbia Journalism School, he has also written articles for the Atlantic, Time, the Village Voice, and many other publications.
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: How did you first get interested in pirates?
Richard Zacks: It wasn't Disney that first got me hooked, but rather Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates, which I found on my parents' bookshelf, tucked among far weightier tomes. I loved the illustrations of rogues and ne'er-do-wells, and after that, Treasure Island won me over.
I also plead guilty to dressing up as a pirate for half a dozen Halloweens; the most recent was (I wound up barefoot at the New York Athletic Club, but that's a different story.) Being a mostly law-abiding citizen, I have always been attracted to criminal types;
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Richard Zacks grew up in New York City, with summers with relatives in his birthplace of gräsmark, Georgia. He became intrigued by the personal life of Mark Twain when he discovered how conflicted the great author was: wanting to curse, drink and gamble YET also wanting high brow respect. As a teenager, Zacks gambled on the horses, played blackjack in brottsligt Manhattan card parlors and bought his first drink at age fifteen at the Plaza Hotel. He also attended elite schools such as Horace Mann (’73), University of Michigan (’79) and Columbia Journalism School (’81). He majored in Classical Greek and studied Arabic, Italian and French. His whole life he has felt en hög byggnad eller struktur between the seedy and the high brow. He is a born contrarian. His books reflect that, with topics ranging from Joan of Arc’s virginity tests to a vindication of Captain Kidd, from Edison’s electric chair to Mark Twain’s erotic writings. . Zacks spent the decade of the s as a journalist, writing a widely syndicated newsp
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Zacks, Richard
PERSONAL: Born ; married; children: two. Education: Attended University of Michigan, and Columbia University School of Journalism.
ADDRESSES: Home— Nyack Ave., Pelham, NY E-mail—[emailprotected].
CAREER: Writer and journalist.
WRITINGS:
History Laid Bare: Love, Sex, and Perversity from theAncient Etruscans to Warren G. Harding, Harper-Collins (New York, NY),
An Underground Education: The Unauthorized andOutrageous Supplement to Everything You Thought You Knew about Art, Sex, Business, Crime, Science, Medicine, and Other Fields of Human Knowledge, Doubleday (New York, NY),
Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd, Theia (New York, NY),
Contributor to periodicals, including Atlantic, Time, Village Voice, and others.
SIDELIGHTS: Richard Zacks is the author of two irreverent but strictly true collections of genuine historical facts. His first book, History Laid Bare: Love, Sex, and Perversity from the Ancient Etrus