Name Holly Morris Role Author | Partner Michael Kovnat | |
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Full Name Holly Marie Morris Born 1965/1966 (age 49–50) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Occupation Writer, film and TV director/producer, travel documentary host Parents Johnny Morris, Jeannie Morris Books Adventure divas, Uncommon Waters Movies The Babushkas of Chernobyl Similar People Megan McCormick, Justine Shapiro, Zay Harding, Johnny Morris, Adela Ucar | ||
Holly Morris (born 1965 or 1966) is an American author, documentary director/producer and television presenter. Her articles have been published in The New York Times Book Review, More, O, Slate, The Daily Telegraph, The Week and other national publications.
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Early life
Morris was born in Chicago, Illinois, US. She is the daughter of former professional football player Johnny Morris and Jeannie Morris, a sports reporter and writer. Johnny Morris was a Chicago Bears wide receiver who became a long-time sportscaster for WBBM-TV in Chicago and a football color commentator with CBS Sports. Jeannie Morris is the author of the best-selling book Brian Piccolo: A Short Season, the story of an American National Football League player who died of cancer at the age of 26.
Career
She was an editorial director of the publishing company Seal Press (which was acquired by Avalon in 2003 and then Perseus in 2007). As an editorial director, she acquired and edited fiction and non-fiction on diverse topics including third wave feminism, health, international politics, and travel.
She is the executive producer, writer/director and host of the eight-part PBS documentary series Adventure Divas, as well as author of Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine (Random House, 2005, 2006), which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice.
As a producer and correspondent, Morris has made programs in Bangladesh, Borneo, Brazil, Cuba, Gabon, Guyana, India, Iran, Malawi, Niger, Syria, Ukraine, and Zambia, among other countries.
She is one of the main hosts of Treks in a Wild World, a Pilot Productions adventure/eco/history series, as well as one of several hosts of the television travel show Globe Trekker (also called Pilot Guides in Canada and the United States and originally broadcast as Lonely Planet). She has been a correspondent for National Geographic Today and the environmental series Outdoor Investigations.
In 2010, she founded PowderKeg Writers' Residency in Brooklyn, New York, New York. Also in 2010, her article "A Country of Women" was published. It chronicles a community of "self settlers" who live inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
She directed and produced (with Anne Bogart) the 2015 documentary "The Babushkas of Chernobyl", about the women of the Exclusion Zone, which premieres at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2015.
In June 2013 she delivered a TED talk on the subject at TEDGlobal in Edinburgh, Scotland.
She is featured in the 2013 documentary release Gringo Trails.
Personal life
Morris lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her partner Michael Kovnat and their daughter.
Works
As director/producer
As travel host
As author
As editor
As Documentary Subject