The Wonder Years: Portraits of Athletes Who Never Slow Down

My newest project, The Wonder Years: Portraits of Athletes Who Never Slow Down, is now out in bookstores.

The book, which I co-authored with photographer Rick Rickman, is a collection of portraits and stories from an extraordinary cast of senior athletes and former Olympians. You can meet some of them in this cool photo gallery posted at USA Today.

“Perhaps no one knows the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat better than athletes in their later years who are still at their game,” writes Carol Kaufmann at AARP Bulletin. “The aches and pains may be greater but so is the victory at the finish line. In their new book, The Wonder Years, photographer Rick Rickman and writer Donna Wares capture the spirit of the athletes, who are living proof that getting older doesn’t mean slowing down.”

Published this summer by Chronicle Books, The Wonder Years includes 100 amazing color portraits by Rick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, and a foreword by figure skating legend Peggy Fleming.

For the past two decades, Rick has traveled the country photographing aging adventurers and amateur athletes who defy the conventional wisdom about what it means to grow old in our society. They are part of a growing senior underground of 350,000 men and women competing at the local and state level to get into the National Senior Games. The games arrived on the West Coast for the first time Aug. 1 to 15, on the Stanford University campus. It’s world’s largest gathering of athletes over 50.

The photo accompanying this post comes from Kepler’s, a terrific independent bookstore in nearby Menlo Park. As you can see, Kepler’s has a special August display of books geared toward the 10,000 athletes now participating the Senior Games.

My partner Rick, of course, is in the middle of the action at Stanford. He shooting the games again this year with a group of his talented photography students from Brook Institute in Ventura. You can check out some of their work here.

On Thursday Aug. 6, Rick will be discussing and signing The Wonder Years from noon to 1 p.m. on the Euflexxa Entertainment Stage on the Stanford campus. The event is in the NSG village.

On August 27, I’ll be joining Rick for a special Wonder Years evening in Orange County. We’ll be discussing and signing The Wonder Years at opening night of the Aquadettes’ annual Aqua Follies in Laguna Woods. The amazing Aquadettes are featured the book and will be joining us to autograph copies of The Wonder Years after the show. [Many thanks to Borders in Mission Viejo for supplying books for this special event.]

On Sept. 24, Rick and I will be discussing The Wonder Years at 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble Marina Pacifica in Long Beach.

Popular culture sometimes suggests there is little to look forward to in our later years, but popular culture is wrong. The men and women featured in this book — and the thousands of athletes participating in this summer’s National Games — have a different message, one of grace and style, a path to the wonder years.

They are showing the rest of us the way.

P.S. Keep up with the latest news about The Wonder Years at twitter.com/wonderyearsbook.

Welcoming the Year of the Water Buffalo

Southern California is home of the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam, and this weekend Little Saigon throws its biggest party of the year. The Tet Festival is a three-day celebration that attracts thousands of revelers and marks the arrival of the Year of the Water Buffalo.

The 27th annual festival features live music, traditional Vietnamese cuisine and a cultural village in the heart of Orange County. There’s also a Tet parade, and families will find kid-pleasing extras such as rides and a petting zoo. This year’s theme is “Spring of Hope.”

“Of course, it all happens in Little Saigon,” says Councilman Andy Quach. “But it’s not only for Vietnamese people. We’d like to invite everyone to our celebration.”

The festival is at Garden Grove Park, at 9301 Westminster Blvd., between Brookhurst and Magnolia streets. Tickets are $5. The hours are 2 to 10 p.m Friday; 10 a,m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. More information.

Friday fun and more

The Long Beach Museum of Art, which has an ongoing California landscapes exhibit, offers free admission on Fridays. So does the nearby Museum of Latin American Art, which is free on Sundays, too.

Starting Friday, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach hosts “Holiday Late Nights.” From Dec. 26 to Jan. 2, admission drops to $10 after 5 p.m., and the aquarium is open until 9 p.m.

The annual migration of Pacific gray whales from Alaska to Mexico officially begins Friday, too. Working with the aquarium, Harbor Breeze Cruises includes naturalists on excursions that take you up close to whales, dolphins and other sea life. Press Telegram.

Updated: What are you doing New Year’s Eve?

Finding your way around literary California

Good news: CaliforniaAuthors.com has teamed up with BookTour.com to make it easy to find literary events – and your favorite writers — around the corner and around the state. As Kevin Smokler notes at the BookTour blog:

Yes, We love being in California, which its great weather, better food and governor who used to pose in a speedo. So we’re thrilled to announce today that our event data will now be syndicated at CaliforniaAuthors.com, the thoughtful chronicler of all things literary and left coast. Just click “event search” in their main navigation and get sent here. Then search by zip code, mileage and time. Take your pick.

CA’s Kate Cohen made the whole thing way too dang easy for her users. And for us. California Authors also features a directory of authors based in the Golden State, libraries of west coast bookstores and publishers and a nice little collection of excerpts from books by California authors.

Read more here.

A great reason to go downtown: Art Walk Thursday

On the second Thursday of every month, downtown LA’s museums, art galleries, and nonprofit arts venues all throw open their doors and invite the public to visit for free. The Downtown Art Walk is tonight – and it’s fun.

The area around Fourth and Main streets, once an abandoned zone next to Skid Row, is now part of a lively Gallery Row, a bundle of showrooms, shops, and sidewalk cafés. Metropolis books is part of the scene, too. Revelers of all ages and backgrounds turn out for the Art Walk.

Need another reason to go? The Hippodrome bus (pictured above) makes its debut run tonight, offering a free shuttle (from 6-10 pm) that stops at various venues. Esotouric founders Kim Cooper and Richard Schave will be onboard, hosting a “floating salon” and sharing interesting tidbits for savoring downtown and its history. Be sure to ask Kim and Richard to point you to the Edison.

P.S. Here’s a map.

Summer getaways and a good works trek, too

This Thursday, June 5, I’ll be at the Marina Pacitica Barnes and Noble in Long Beach talking about Great Escapes: Southern California. Check out the details here.

This weekend, I went to the amazing BookExpo America in LA. Check out my photo gallery here. [Travel finds included Explorer's handy mini map series (photo above) and the Greenopia guides for Los Angeles and San Francisco.]

Yesterday, I helped pal Lori Sakamoto create a blog for her good works trek to Africa this summer. Check out the Crocs for Kenya Project.

Your California lit guide

A shiny new CaliforniaAuthors.com debuted this week with a fresh design and an easy-to-navigate new site.

Kate Cohen and I first launched CaliforniaAuthors in 2002 and we’ve built some nice resources for exploring the Golden State. You’ll find a growing and varied library of book excerpts and essays by California writers; a directory of California novelists, nonfiction writers and poets; and listings pointing to independent bookstores, West Coast Publishers, literary events, book festivals, and more. CaliforniaAuthors also teamed up with Angel City Press to create the remarkable My California anthology, which benefits the California Arts Council and writing programs for children throughout the state. Browse here.

Booked in Westwood

Next weekend is the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a sprawling outdoor affair that regularly draws 100,000 book lovers to the UCLA campus every spring. (Who says people in LA don’t read?!)

The festival is great fun. You’ll see throngs of people lined up in the sunshine outside lecture halls, waiting — and obviously excited — to join conversations about current events, current fiction, and the latest offerings from sci-fi masters and chick-lit queens. Poets give impassioned readings under the big tent outside Powell Library. Open-air stages feature celebrated chefs and celebrities touting their children’s books. I love to browse the dozens of booksellers, publishers, museums, non-profit foundations, and retailers who set up shop along UCLA’s grassy plazas.

More than 400 authors appear on Saturday and Sunday (tickets to daytime events are free), so you’ll find plenty of great choices. A festival map is here.

I’ll be at the Festival of Books on Sunday, April 27, signing copies of My California: Journeys by Great Writers from 1 to 2 pm with Edward Humes and Veronique de Turenne. Please be sure to stop by the Angel City Press Booth (#332, near Royce Hall) and say hello.

The Open Road

Time magazine’s cover story on the Dalai Lama comes from Santa Barbara author and travel writer extraordinaire Pico Iyer. “As fans of his travel writings know, Pico’s curiosity has led him to nearly every corner of the globe, but he has always found himself returning to the monk in Dharamsala…” writes Time managine editor Richard Stengel.

“Now Pico offers the definitive portrait of His Holiness in this week’s cover story, which is adapted from his new book, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. `Over the years,’ Pico says, `I’ve been struck by how practically he’s adapted his message to the times and the worldwide audience. He’s thought about his positions more deeply and more rigorously than anyone I’ve ever met.’ ” Read “A Monk’s Struggle” here. 

Knopf releases The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama this week. (More stories: Philadelphia Inquirer , Fresh Air, and The New Yorker.) Pico will be discussing his new book on April 26 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA and May 19 at the Santa Barbara Arts and Lecture Series. ”I do see this as a travel book,” he says in an interview with World Hum, “and when I think of travel, and any of the travel books I’ve written, the real meaning of them is trying to see the world through different eyes. It’s a journey into a different perspective for me. “

Pico, a contributor to the My California anthology, also penned a wonderful passage about his favorite drive through the Santa Barbara hills for my book Great Escapes: Southern California.