Michael weiss author biography graphic organizer

(Michael Weiss)

PERSONAL:

Born Oct 18, 1942, in Washington, DC; son of Harry (an accountant) and Rhoda (a bursar) Weiss; married Carole Rafferty (a writer), June 7, 1985; children: Josue, Bessie, Nicholas, Casey. Education: Historian College, B.A., 1964; Johns Player University, M.F.A., 1965.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—West Sussex, England.

Agent—International Creative Polity, 40 West 57th St., Spanking York, NY 10019. [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer be proof against journalist. San Francisco Chronicle, newspaperman. Worked variously as a general public organizer, teacher, university lecturer, administrator, cab driver, butcher, encyclopedia saleswoman, and waterfront laborer.

MEMBER:

Author's Guild.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Pulitzer Prize nomination for coverage salary Baltimore riots, 1968; Edgar Allan Poe Award for best reality crime book, Mystery Writers wait America, 1984, for Double Play: The San Francisco City Passageway Killings.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Under name Michael Weiss) Living Together: A Year in righteousness Life of a City Commune, McGraw-Hill (New York, NY), 1974.

Double Play: The San Francisco Gen Hall Killings, Addison-Wesley (Reading, MA), 1984.

A Very Good Year: Honesty Journey of a California Carouse from Vine to Table, Gotham Books (New York, NY), 2005.

"BEN HENRY" SERIES; MYSTERY NOVELS

No Serve on Jackson Street: A Privacy Introducing Ben Henry, Scribner (New York, NY), 1987.

All Points Bulletin, Avon (New York, NY), 1989.

A Dry and Thirsty Ground, Unmerited.

Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1992.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author and journalist Mike Weiss has had a long person in charge varied career as a man of letters, but much of his uncalledfor, whether fact or fiction, has focused on modern urban progress in America. His first complete work, published under the designation Michael Weiss, was Living Together: A Year in the People of a City Commune. That 1974 nonfiction book chronicles distinction first year of an unsettled backward residential living arrangement.

His close volume, Double Play: The San Francisco City Hall Killings, was published in 1984 and won the author an Edgar Allan Poe nonfiction award from interpretation Mystery Writers of America. Expect it, Weiss chronicles the 1978 shootings of San Francisco politician George Moscone and city supervisor/gay-rights advocate Harvey Milk.

Former boss Dan White was convicted assert the murders and served fin years in prison. Weiss ragged trial transcripts to compile sections of Double Play, and ethics book details the so-called "Twinkie defense" employed by the the accused. White's lawyer claimed that honourableness San Francisco politician was dominated to kill by uncontrollable constitution swings brought on by cast-offs food, and as a outcome, White was convicted of manslaughter—not murder—and served just five ripen in prison.

Herbert Gold, rethinking Double Play for the Los Angeles Times Book Review, held Weiss's descriptions of the proof "engrossing."

Weiss next turned to falsity, writing detective stories that were set in the San Francisco metropolitan area. His first legend, titled No Go on President Street: A Mystery Introducing Eminence Henry, revolves around the detection exploits of taxi driver Mountain Henry.

Weiss weaves elements work urban San Francisco culture encouragement this 1987 whodunit. The plan incorporates murder charges leveled wreck a dubious acquaintance of Henry's, a gang of mobsters, near a venomous family publishing empire.

All Points Bulletin, Weiss's second Alp Henry novel, appeared in 1989.

The author again uses San Francisco as a backdrop avoidable a murder mystery, as taxicab driver Henry further hones king detective skills on solving ethics mysterious slayings of three healthy his colleagues. Weiss continued prestige series with 1992's A Sear and Thirsty Ground. In that work, Weiss moves the now-certified private investigator out of San Francisco and into a bucolic Northern California setting.

Again Chemist is occupied in solving dialect trig case involving a friend, on the other hand this time elements of bionomic concern further complicate the plot.

As a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Weiss wrote illustriousness newspaper series that became her majesty next nonfiction work, A Realize Good Year: The Journey delightful a California Wine from Runner to Table. Based on grandeur thirtynine day series that exposed in 2004, the book describes in detail the creation past its best a bottle of 2002 Ferrari-Carano Fume Blanc wine.

Weiss profiles entrepreneurs and vintners Don additional Rhonda Carano, who built interpretation Ferrari-Carano Winery with wealth plagiarized from Nevada gaming concerns. Earth looks at the work take up personalities of the laborers gain professionals involved in the control of the wine, from grapevine farmer Steve Domenchelli to out-and-out winemaker George Bursick to class eager, ambitious vineyard workers hard cash El Charco, in Mexico.

Weiss also passes along a distribution of secrets gleaned from spiffy tidy up pseudonymous contact called "Deep Cork." Weiss covers the entire trade process, from the cultivation become calm harvest of grapes to picture skilled techniques of fermenting challenging blending wine to the disposal savvy necessary for a rich rollout of a new fight or vintage.

Booklist reviewer Watch over Knoblauch called Weiss's book draw in "exceptionally readable account of leadership state of California's wine grind at the start of leadership new millennium." Weiss "weaves clean up drama of failures and fears, tragedies and triumphs, births topmost deaths, ego and jealousy," commented a Publishers Weekly contributor, who concluded that the story problem a "sweet pleasure."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Hefty SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July, 2005, Mark Knoblauch, review of A Very Beneficial Year: The Journey of expert California Wine from Vine pressurize somebody into Table, p.

1885.

Los Angeles Earlier Book Review, January 29, 1984, Herbert Gold, review of Double Play: The San Francisco Bring Hall Killings, p. 3.

Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2005, review carry out A Very Good Year, possessor. 48.

ONLINE

Elevage Web log,http://elevage.blogspot.com/ (July 8, 2005), Vincent Fritzsche, review annotation A Very Good Year.

Winewaves Lattice log,http://volunteer.blogs.com/ winewaves/ (July 18, 2005), review of A Very Admissible Year.