Gloria Norris’s heartbreaking and hilarious memoir, KooKooLand....
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Gloria Norris
Author of KooKooLand
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Gloria Norris’s heartbreaking and hilarious memoir, KooKooLand, was named a best book of the year by NPR. Young Gloria—described by famed author Wally Lamb as part Scout Finch, part Huck Finn—grew up in a ramshackle housing project in Manchester, New Hampshire. Her unconventional childhood was spent accompanying her Greek father to barrooms, racetracks and rendezvous with petty criminals. She learned how to fire a gun by shooting rats at the dump. All the while Gloria tried to make sense of the racism, anti-Semitism and misogyny that was all around her. Gloria’s captivating story, told with no-holds-barred honesty, provides a blueprint for transcending not only economic hardship but ideological hardship as well. With grit and grace, Gloria forged her own identity, becoming the first in her family to attend college. She received a scholarship to Bennington College—at the time the most expensive school in the country—and graduated from Sarah Lawrence with a degree in film and creative writing.
Gloria’s first job was co-writing a screenplay for acclaimed filmmaker Brian De Palma, director of such films as Scarface and Mission Impossible. She subsequently worked as an assistant to director Martin Scorsese on Raging Bull, starring Robert De Niro in his Academy Award-winning performance. She also worked as Woody Allen’s assistant on Stardust Memories, A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and Zelig. Woody Allen’s producers optioned Gloria’s screenplay The Uncle Bob Show and brought her out to Los Angeles to develop it. Since relocating to California, she has worked as a screenwriter and script doctor for most of the major studios, with assignments that have taken her from Paris to the Amazon. She produced the indie comedy, Easy, which screened at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival and on Showtime, and co-wrote and produced The Moment, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She is currently developing KooKooLand as a limited television series.
Some of the issues Gloria has spoken passionately about include domestic violence, mental health issues, the prescription drug epidemic, white working class despair, and the salvation that education provides for kids like her. Oprah’s magazine called KooKooLand ‘electrifying,’ and the very same can be said of Gloria’s extraordinary talks.
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Topics
Topics
Welcome to KooKooLand: My Unlikely Journey from a Housing Project to Hollywood
Not My Father’s Daughter: Rejecting the Racism & Anti-Semitism of My KooKooLand Childhood
No Good Choice: The Truth About Domestic Violence Shown in KooKooLand
Trigger Warning: The Intersection of Gun Violence & Mental Health in KooKooLand
Videos
Videos
Gloria Norris on the Sustainability of Community Journalism
Kookooland Author Gloria Norris addresses InDepthNH.org event
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