Lawrence E. Joseph

Date and place of birth

February 7, 1954 Danbury, Connecticut. But I was raised in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with which I most closely identify.

Current Residence

Beverly Hills, California, USA

Current position/Key Projects

Lawrence E. Joseph was formerly the chairman of an advanced plasma physics research and development company in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Key projects included the development of the the Vulcan Plasma Disintegrator, an ultra-high temperature (10,000 to 15,000 degrees K) furnace designed to completely dissociate highly toxic biological and chemical wastes, leaving no toxic residue.

Previous Works

Strawberry Fields Forever: John Lennon Remembered (Bantam Books, 1980) (co-writer). Written, typeset, printed and distributed twelve days after John Lennon's assassination, this Bantam "instant book" became a NY Times bestseller and was sold globally.

American Lifestyles for the 1980's (Packaged Facts, Inc., New York, NY 1981) This marketing study examined American social and cultural trends and projected their impact on the consumption of consumer goods throughout the 1980's.

Amerika, (Simon & Schuster, 1987) (co-writer). This novelization of the 14-hour ABC miniseries, on which I also served as creative editor, became a NY Times bestseller and was sold internationally.

Gaia: The Growth of an Idea (St. Martin's Press, hardcover, 1990, softcover, 1991) The book also came out in the United Kingdom (Penguin Arkana, 1991), Italy (Geo), Spain/Latin America (Cuatro Vientos) and Japan. More than any other project, this book, arising from my November, 1986 article on Gaia in The New York Times Magazine, has defined my career. Over the past twenty years, I have since written and lectured on the Gaia movement at UNCED, the 1992 United Nations "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro, at two American Geophysical Union Chapman conferences on the Gaia Hypothesis (San Diego, 1988; Valencia, Spain, 2000) on Surtsey, the youngest island in the world, an ecological preserve at the southwestern tip of the Icelandic archipelago, New York City, Prague, Beirut and many other locations.

Common Sense: Why It's No Longer Common (Addison-Wesley, 1994) This book enabled me to pursue a brief career as a common sense consultant, with such clients as the United Nations Development Programme (assignment in Bogota, Colombia), and the American Society for Industrial Security.

Education

Stuyvesant High School, New York, NY 1967-1970

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island B.A. 1970-1974

University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, 1975-1977, graduate studies, teaching assistant, in literature

Previous Positions

Editor, Charleston Poetic Review, Charleston, South Carolina, 1978

Chief Marketing Writer, Packaged Facts, Inc, New York, NY 1980-1990

Chairman of the Board, Aerospace Consulting Corporation (AC2), Albuquerque, New Mexico, April, 2005 to present. (I first joined the company in 1995, and have been a member of the board since 2003).

Professional, Academic, or Fraternal Organization Membership

Writer's Guild of America, 1986-present PEN American Center, 1990-present

Honors, Awards, and Prizes

1987, 1988: Summer residencies at Fondation Karolyi, an artistic foundation in Vence, France.

1992: Major grant from Gaiaship Foundation, Oslo, Norway

Magazines, Newspapers and Professional Journals

The New York Times (Sunday magazine, Op-Ed, Travel)

Salon.com

Family Circle

Audubon

Art News

Discover

Diversion