Friday, February 13, 2009

Michael Heaton: Where Be Dragons

In days of yore, when a territory to be mapped lacked reports of adventurers returned, the mapmaker would label it "Thar be dragons." In our modern times, where cartographers and satellites have scrubbed such portents from the maps of our globe, explorers of our day set sail on adventures into the wide seas of the human mind.

Michael Heaton, one such explorer, is an award-winning columnist and reporter. He's had a regular byline in the Cleveland Plain Dealer since 1987. Before that he was a critic and columnist for the San Francisco Examiner. Before that he reportered for a little mag called People. A graduate of Kent State University, he also co-authored the New York Times bestseller Motherhood and Hollywood with his sister, double Emmy-winning actress Patty Heaton. In 1992 a selection from his series of Plain Dealer columns was bound and titled The Best of the Minister of Culture, his PD nom de plume.

small portrait of Michael Heaton

Heaton's latest, Truth and Justice for Fun and Profit, pulls together forty stories, stirring together what sings, what stings, and what stinks in Cleveland and a few other peculiar locales. Included in the brew are chefs and gypsies and priests, undercover Federals and mob informants, and boxers with serious gloves on his face. Explorers shouldn't expect to return home unscathed.

At our February 21 meeting, Michael will give a talk he calls "My 9/11", the story of the happenstance which brought him to be the first reporter at Ground Zero on 9/11. Besides hearing how he scooped the rest of the world's papers that devastating day, attendees will receive a free copy of his Best of the Minister of Culture. Michael will field questions following his presentation.

Michael Heaton blogs at michaelheaton.wordpress.com and conceives his next explorations in and around Cleveland.

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