Name Joie Davidow | Role Author | |
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Books Infusions of Healing: A Treasury, Marked for Life: A Memoir, I Wouldn't Leave Rome to, Memories of Times Past: Rome, Rome: 70 Paintings | ||
Joie Davidow is an author and editor best known as co-founder of the L.A.Weekly and L.A. Style magazine, and for her memoir "Marked for LIfe."
Contents
Davidow was born in Philadelphia, United States, to a Romanian mother and Russian father and grew up in New Jersey. Davidow was one of the founders of the L.A. Weekly, a newspaper that has been publishing in Los Angeles since December, 1978. She launched the monthly magazine L.A. Style in 1982, covering all areas of style, from fashion, interior design and architecture to food and travel. It became the fastest growing newspaper in the United States and was acquired by American Express Publishing in 1985. She is the author of a memoir about living with a facial port wine stain, Marked for Life (Harmony) and with Esmeralda Santiago she edited two story anthologies, Las Mamis and Las Christmas (both published by Knopf). She is currently a founder and the editor of a weekly online magazine www.inromenow.com, and makes her home in Rome, Italy, where she continues to write and teach.
Early life
Davidow was born in the small town of Millville, New Jersey, to a Jewish family in which both parents were lawyers. She has two siblings, Jacqueline Davidow and Julianne Davidow. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a major in music and went on to earn a Master of Music degree from New England Conservatory. Her life goal, was to become an opera singer, and with that in mind, she went to Rome, Italy to study with Maestro Luigi Ricci, at that time in his 90s, who had been a coach at the Opera di Roma when Puccini premiered his operas there. She began a relationship with light and video artist Rudi Stern, and co-founded the video cooperative Global Village in New York city, taking to the streets with the first portable video cameras, documenting political protests and speeches, which were not being covered by the three major channels, the only accessible television at that time. As a member of the Global Village team. she taught video production through the New School.
Los Angeles
After the end of her relationship with Rudi Stern, she moved to Los Angeles, where she co-founded an alternative weekly newspaper, L.A. Weekly, with Jay Levin, a former investigative reporter for the New York Post, whom she had known in New York. In 1985, on the heels of the success of the L.A. Weekly, she founded a spin-off magazine, L.A. Style, chronicling the aesthetic of Los Angeles at that time. In 1988, the L.A.Weekly sold the magazine to American Express Publishing. Unhappy with the corporate approach to what had been an independent publication, Davidow resigned her position as Executive Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, effective in January 1992. The magazine folded nine months later. In 1995, with colleague Eileen Rosaly, she founded Sí magazine, catering to the English-speaking Latino population of the United States. Unable to convince major advertisers that the Latino market was viable, the magazine folded in 1997. Subsequently, Davidow teamed with Esmeralda Santiago to edit two volumes of memoir, featuring the work of many of the authors who had participated in Sí magazine. Las Christmas: Favorite Latino Authors Share Their Holiday Memories and Las Mamis: Favorite Latino Authors Remember their Mothers, both published by Knopf.
Rome
Davidow spent part of the years 2000-2001 in Rome, Italy, completing her own memoir, Marked for Life, which was published by Harmony in 2003. In 2005, she moved full-time to Rome, where, with colleague Vikki Ericks, she founded the weekly online magazine InRomeNow.com. In 2008, she published a short novel, I Wouldn't Leave Rome to Go to Heaven (2008). She teaches creative workshops in Rome, edits the work of other writers and works as a writing coach and an Italian-English translator.