Retired professor's latest book sheds new light on Pulitzer Prize-winning American classic \ Westminster College westminster.edu - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from westminster.edu Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Through the first 50 years of the Bay Area Reporter s existence, the paper s coverage of sports and sports-related topics has evolved from that of cheerleader and recording secretary to social advocate and noble muckraker.
Sports reporting was less than an afterthought when the B.A.R. started publishing in April 1971. The first sports item a story with no byline about annual awards presented by the local gay bowling league that identified most individuals only by surnames and first initials did not appear until page 27 of the third issue, May 1, 1971.
Classified ads also debuted in the issue. There were 11 of them, including one from a man who wanted info or advice on Sex Change Operation and another advising us that a foot fetishist likes to go down and groove on male feet.
What was your original impetus for writing “American Goshawk”?
I was at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, N.H. For many years a female North American goshawk nested on the property, near one of the studios. Goshawks aren’t the largest birds in the sky by any means, but they are among the fiercest, and that summer it attacked a number of the artists in residence whose studios were on that lane, bloodying some. Dinner conversation each night often turned on who had seen it, and/or been attacked by it.
After a few days of this, all I could think of was that