Jenna Schnuer

World Hum: Interview with Author Bonnie TsuiOctober 7, 2009

There has always been a Chinatown in Bonnie Tsui's life. Though she was raised on New York’s Long Island, Tsui writes in her book, American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, that it was Manhattan’s Chinatown where her family went “to be Chinese.”

After moving to San Francisco in 2003, Tsui realized that, though the neighborhood’s name was the same, the Chinatown of her new home city had little to do with the one she had left behind. And, with that, she decided it was time to find out what makes a Chinatown.

Read the interview on World Hum.

American Way: Social MediaOctober 1, 2009

It started with the oversharing. Some of Sarah Schmelling’s friends were offering a little too much information in their Facebook status updates. Late one night, she began to think about the craziest thing she could imagine in a status update, and that’s when the former English major’s brain tumbled to Hamlet’s beloved Ophelia and what she might write as she was losing her mind. Now we can all know the answer, as Schmelling’s new book, Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook (Plume, $15), hits bookshelves. In her debut novel, she brings a slew of classic literary characters and their creators to (online) life.

Read the interview. 

World Hum's Flyover America: Photographers Focus on the 50 StatesMarch 10, 2009

The Works Progress Administration did it. Musician Sufjan Stevens has done a bit of it. Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey got a whole bunch of people to do it. And, um, [my co-writer] Sophia [Dembling] and I are deep into our own version of it.

The it in question? Exploring, one by one, what makes each of the 50 states unique—and looking for the threads that tie them together. Now it’s time to add another to the list: The 50 States Project. Every other month, 50 photos—one from each state—will be posted on the site. Flyover America checked in with Stuart Pilkington, the U.K.-based (we’ll get to that) creator and curator of the project to find out what it’s all about.

Read the interview.

American Way: Laugh TrackingJanuary 1, 2009

It was early 2004, and the heated November presidential election was inching closer by the day. Michael Kantor and Laurence Maslon had just wrapped the PBS documentary series about the history of New York theater called Broadway: The American Musical, and they realized that America was tense. “There was something about the moment in time and the country being polarized that made me think, ‘We could use a good joke right now,’ ” Kantor says. Better yet, he thought, a century of good jokes. So Kantor and Maslon set about chronicling the history of humor in the United States for a new book, Make ’Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America (Twelve Books, $45), and its accompanying six-part documentary series of the same name, which will air on PBS in January. The duo gave us the scoop on their entertaining new project.

Read the article.

American Way: If These Walls Could TalkSeptember 15, 2007

It's not unusual to see visitors to New York City--or even a local or two, when they remember to stop and smell the cement--looking up, taking in all the architectural sights the city has to offer. But on October 6 and 7, the fifth annual Open House New York Weekend will offer some relief for the neck strain: Instead of having to look up, architectural aficionados will be able to take a look deep inside hundreds of buildings and sites around the city.

Read the full piece on the American Way site.

American Way: Secret ServiceApril 15, 2007

Every Sunday, 43-year-old Frank Warren of Germantown, Maryland, sorts through hundreds of homemade postcards that complete strangers have mailed to him. He chooses about 20 and posts them on his website, PostSecret.com. Each contains one secret and usually some artwork. No name is attached. Some of the secrets are sweet or funny, but many of them are of the deep, dark variety that people dread, revealing everything from thoughts of suicide to admissions of marital infidelity.

American Way: Fantastic PlasticApril 1, 2007

When it comes to photography, the focus tends to be on small and digital. But not everybody is mesmerized by megapixels. One of the latest trends is to use plastic cameras, also known as toy cameras, which encourage users to just play -- often with spectacular results.

American Way: The Road Less TraveledJanuary 1, 2007

Lance Mackey is making the rounds. His team of 16 dogs, including the leaders (“Larry, the brains of the outfit, and Hobo, the speed behind the team”), dive into the food and bowls of water he sets before them. “They’re very aggressive eaters,” says Mackey. After inhaling the meal, some return to rolling in the snow to cool off from their run, while others work the hay under their paws into a comfortable spot to rest. Like human athletes, each has his own postrun routine.

For Mackey, the pack of mostly related look-alikes has more in common with a top-ranked high school soccer team than with pro players. The spirited black-and-beige dogs are “basically a bunch of adolescents ... a bunch of high school kids with minimum discipline.” But he’s not complaining — he breeds his dogs to have strong appetites and even stronger can-do (and rather chipper) attitudes. “Without either one, you’re not going very far,” he says.

Read the rest of my story about the 2006 Iditarod on the American Way site.

Pages: The Whole TruthNov/Dec 2006

In the latest edition of my column about narrative nonfiction, biographies, and the quirky bits in between, I introduce readers to books about Monopoly, tea, and the great lengths one writer went to in order to quit smoking.

American Way: Docs That RockSeptember 1, 2006

Summer’s almost over, and with it, the blockbuster movie season. But that doesn’t mean an end to great film viewing. While an empty calorie or two in film form isn’t a bad thing, man cannot exist on Raisinets alone. And, over the last few years, box-office draws of a meatier variety, documentaries, have made it clear that many a moviegoer wants a little something more out of their popcorn time.

We asked experts to offer recommendations of titles you should pop into your DVD player. “Part of the fun of it,” says Michael Renov, professor of critical studies and associate dean of academic affairs for the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, “is discovering all these different voices and these different approaches to telling stories that are based on people and events in the real world.”

Read the piece on the American Way website.