Tower Stories: an Oral History of 9/11

The revised, updated edition of Tower Stories: an Oral History of 9/11 is now available from Santa Monica Press. (www.santamonicapress.com). The new book features follow up interviews with key contributors and never-before seen photos. For more information, visit www.towerstories.org.

REVIEWS

"This book defends the understanding, as also the horror, of that day. We are indebted to Mr. DiMarco for the effort and for the editorial acuity."

William F. Buckley, Jr.

"I hope this book remains in print for a very long time to come, because everyone should read it. Our children should read it. With regard to 9/11, we-as a people-cannot allow a myth to take root. We must ground ourselves in our pain if we have any hope of moving forward. And move forward we must."

Thomas Kean, Chairman, 9/11 Commission (From the Foreword of TOWER STORIES)

"This is oral history at its finest."

The Richmond Post-Dispatch

"The only widely available oral history of 9/11 from the perspective of New Yorkers, this monumental work (originally released by Revolution in 2004) has been updated for the sixth anniversary of the national tragedy. In the weeks following the World Trade Center attack, DiMarco, in the tradition of Studs Terkel, wandered Manhattan collecting the stories of Gothamites who survived the collapse of the towers, came to help or simply bore witness-whether from elsewhere in the city, across the country or overseas . . . DiMarco's contribution to the memory of that horrific day is enormous; the testimonies collected here form an amazing, one-of-a-kind account."

STAR REVIEW from Publisher's Weekly

". . .unique, a multitude of firsthand experiences preserved as few other 9/11 books have done. This second edition is expanded with many more photographs and with updates about a number of the witnesses interviewed. Recommended for all public and undergraduate libraries."

Margaret Heilbrun, Library Journal

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The Actor's Art and Craft
with Bill Esper.

The Actor’s Art and Craft is a collaboration with world renowned acting teacher, William Esper. Bill is arguably the world’s leading expert on the Meisner Technique. Damon studied under Bill at Rutgers Universirty’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.
 
The Actor’s Art and Craft features a foreword by David Mamet. The book provides a wealth of information for professional actors, acting teachers, students, and beginners by exploring First Year Meisner work in the context of a story. It supplements Sandy Meisner’s Meisner on Acting (also published by Random House) and breaks new ground thanks to Bill’s fifty-plus years of applying, evolving, and celebrating Sandy’s work.

For more information on the William Esper Studio, visit www.esperstudio.com.

REVIEWS

" . . . a fantastic, long-overdue exploration of actor training. Co-authored by [William] Esper protégé Damon DiMarco, himself an actor and teacher, the book is a step-by-step overview of the exercises and ideas Esper has sharpened and refined through the years. His goal is to clearly define a technique applicable to any challenge an actor may face in the course of a career — whether Shakespeare or Stoppard, the stage or the Internet. The aim is to build a well-structured foundation that can handle any style, situation, or format . . . By following a class of real students over the course of a year, the authors successfully put the reader through the class as well. Many acting books, going back to Stanislavsky, have used this device, but it really works here because there is so much pure sincerity and wisdom in Esper's approach. Beginning with basic repetition exercises and moving on to concentration and scene study, Esper and DiMarco chronicle one of the best and most effective techniques an actor can study. The book serves as an amazing tool and resource without being dogmatic or hampering. As Esper puts it, ‘Ultimately technique does not constrain an artist's instincts, it frees them."
 
Backstage Magazine 10/16/08
 

". . . I've spent my life working with actors. To do so one needs but a few, essential tools, the mastery of which is the challenging work of a lifetime: be patient, be precise, be terse, encourage, suggest, praise, listen. I was first exposed to these tools through the example of Bill Esper, and I am very grateful."

David Mamet

". . . Every serious actor who dreams of becoming a first rate artist must read this book!"

Calista Flockhart

"A veritable magnum opus on acting from a master teacher."

Olympia Dukakis.

". . . It's the best book on the craft of acting that I have ever read."

Mary Steenburgen

". . . This book is a wonderful journey into Bill's process. It gives the novice and even the veteran actor a vocabulary and guidelines on how to solve the acting problems that any text presents."

Sam Rockwell

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Out of Bounds
with Roy Simmons

  
Hard Cover               Soft Cover

Out of Bounds, Damon’s collaboration with Roy Simmons, is now available in both hardcover and trade paperback from Carrol & Graf.

When New York Giants coach Ray Perkins stated, “Roy Simmons just might be the best athlete on this football team,” no one could have guessed that in just four years, Simmons would earn his living as a baggage handler at Kennedy Airport.

The second NFL player ever to come out as gay and the first ever to come out as HIV-positive, Simmons was an up-and-coming star who quit football after just four years rather than be exposed as gay. Out of Bounds tells his story — from his rape at age 10 to being plucked from his poor Southern background to join the NFL, from his first taste of pro football fame and sudden enormous wealth to his fast-paced, no holds barred nightlife of heavy drugs and countless sexual encounters with women and men.

Simmons roller-coaster life peaked in the late 1980s with his appearance in the Superbowl. Ultimately, reckless living left him penniless, friendless, and on the brink of suicide. Finally in 1992, he tapped the courage to come out as gay on national TV, and as HIV- positive 10 years later — an act which set him on the path towards sobriety and self-acceptance.

REVIEWS

  "A story ...full of raw vitality that too often found auto-combustive expression - before, during and after his days in the NFL...Blisteringly honest portrait of a man fencing with his self-destructive instincts."

Kirkus Reviews

"Simmons is particularly harrowing in relating his descent into the grimy life of drug addiction. . . Readers interested in sports or gay biography will get their money's worth."
 
 Library Journal
 

For more information on Roy, visit www.sugarbear.info.

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AS PHOTO EDITOR

3: The Dale Earnhardt Story by ESPN

The companion book to Golden Globe(R) and Emmy(R) nominee Barry Pepper’s star turn as the greatest NASCAR driver of all time in the ESPN original Movie 3: THE DALE EARNHARDT STORY.

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