Alexander Stuart

Thank you to Lenore Rutherford of the Union Democrat for writing such a kind and generous profile of me, and for capturing our family's love of the community and, especially, the Sierra Waldorf School in our move to Sonora. Sonora and our surrounding communities may not realize just how lucky we are to have a real daily local newspaper (in print since 1854!) - so many major newspapers struggle to survive now, and when we lived in Los Angeles, I heard of one paper outsourcing its local government reporting to writers in India! (Presumably they sent them transcripts of town hall meetings.) Anyway, thank you, Lenore - and thanks to the Union Democrat...and to Sonora and the Motherlode, for making our family feel so welcome.

The front of the "Einstein Mask" card invitation to the Cannes Film Festival party (May 11, 1985) for Nicolas Roeg's film, Insignificance , which I executive produced. We also had a really cool wrap party after shooting in New York at AREA - at that time (1984), probably the hippest (and largest) club in Manhattan. To see the reverse of the invitation, please visit this blog's Facebook page, AlexanderStuart.com  - and please "Like" the page:)

Photograph: Alexander Chow-Stuart. On Saturday November 19, 2011, from 10:30am-12 noon (Pacific Standard Time) , I will be hosting a 90-minute screenwriting and creative writing workshop and webinar, called Why Do You Want To Write? This really is the essential question any writer faces each time they sit down at their computer, notebook or typewriter (I think there are still a few typewriter holdouts:) The location for the workshop is the Meeting Room of the Starbucks at The Junction, 13761 Mono Way, Sonora, CA 95370. Telephone 310-383-7562 for more details - or email: tranquilbuddha@gmail.com Tickets for the workshop are $20, or $10 if you're a student. Please email me in advance to reserve seating. The live webinar costs $10 in the US and £10 in Britain and Europe (all webinar payments via PayPal to Alexander Stuart at tranquilbuddha@gmail.com ). The time of the live webinar obviously varies from place to place: On the West Coast, it is 10:30am-12 noon PST.

I was just blown away by this YouTube video yesterday of thousands of people singing Beethoven's Ode To Joy in Madrid's main square (the Puerta del Sol)  to support the first  global day of the Occupy movement (OccupyWall Street, also known as O15 for yesterday's date)  - so beautiful, such wonderful music and so many people assembled peacefully together in unity. (Linus would have approved:) Spain/Madrid is where the Occupy protests actually started several months ago to the day - May 15, 2011 - in sympathy with the Arab Spring and to protest Spain's crumbling economy, ransacked by bankers like everywhere else.  This video yesterday symbolized to me the first truly global day of the Occupy movement...and the fact that hopefully the whole world of the 99% is waking up, waking from a dream (or nightmare) and realizing that this is the time to take back power, to fundamentally change how our societies function.  That's idealistic and incredibly hard to acco

Promotional poster for the original mass-market paperback edition of Life On Mars. I am revising and editing Life On Mars , my non-fiction account of life in Miami's South Beach of the 1990s, for a new print and Kindle edition to be published later in 2013. The book explores South Beach during one of its most exciting periods, as it was transformed from essentially a mix of retirement community and crack neighborhood in the 1980s (think: Pacino's  Scarface ) into a revitalized and lovingly restored Art Deco community in the 1990s, filled with trendy new bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels.  It was a fun book to write - and a fun book to live with: people would greet me on the street (usually while I was cycling, my preferred method of transport in SoBe), yelling out because they had recognized me from the author photo inside the book. We made a two-hour British Channel Four television documentary, inspired by the book, called The End of America. The new edition