Journalism, Travel Writing and Fiction
Harrison wrote for many of the leading periodicals of her time, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The Village Voice, The Nation, Ladies' Home Journal and Mother Jones magazine. Among the people she interviewed were Red Barber, Mario Cuomo, Jane Fonda, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, Francis Ford Coppola, Nadia Comăneci, Alessandra Mussolini and Barbara Bush. Because of her background, Harrison was often asked to write about movements that were perceived to be cults; she described families affected by the Unification Church and the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, and reported on the U.S. government's deadly standoff with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas.
Harrison published two collections of her essays and interviews: Off Center (1980) and The Astonishing World (1992). Her 1992 Harper's essay "P.C. on the Grill", which lampooned the "philosophy" of popular TV chef The Frugal Gourmet, was included in the 1993 edition of Best American Essays.
Harrison also wrote numerous travel articles covering destinations all over the world. She published two books about her travels in Italy, Italian Days (1989) and The Islands of Italy: Sicily, Sardinia, and the Aeolian Islands (1991).
In 1984 Harrison published a novel, Foreign Bodies. She won an O. Henry Award for short fiction in 1989.
Read more about this topic: Barbara Grizzuti Harrison
Famous quotes containing the words travel, writing and/or fiction:
“He may travel who can subsist on the wild fruits and game of the most cultivated country.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“As I am writing my thought, it sometimes escapes me; but this makes me remember my weakness, which I constantly forget. This is as instructive to me as my forgotten thought; for I strive only to know my nothingness.”
—Blaise Pascal (16231662)
“If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms some story which we had read.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)