John J. Healey
John J Healey was born and raised in New York City. He studied medicine in Granada, Spain but left the field and began a 12-year career in motion pictures. In 1998, Healy directed the documentary Federico García Lorca and in 2010 The Practice of the Wild, a portrait of poets Gary Snyder and Jim Harrison.
His first novel Emily & Herman was published in 2013, followed by The Samurai of Seville, in 2016. Its sequel, The Samurai's Daughter, was published in 2019. A fifth novel, April in Paris, will be published by Arcade in July 2021.
When Films Were Kings
Born of nostalgia, Chinatown today inspires a nostalgia of its own: for a Hollywood driven by creativity.
The Case Against Junipero Serra
Junipero Serra is the subject of statues, tributes and even street names throughout California. But the 18th-century Catholic priest’s legacy is problematic, to say the least.
Celluloid Heroes
Cari Beauchamp's “My First Time in Hollywood” is an anthology of annotated recollections culled from 42 pioneers in the early days of the movies.
California’s Island Heritage
First published around 1510, the “Las Sergas de Esplandián,” written by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo, imagined an island paradise called “California,” inhabited by Amazonian women. The rather literate Conquistadors used the name to describe the west coast of North America continent.