Barbara Kraft’s bio

Barbara Kraft, a former journalist for Time magazine and contributor to USA Today, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, LA Weekly, People, Architectural Digest and Angeles, is a seasoned writer intimately conversant with the needs of the media. Barbara Kraft is also an independent radio producer and writer. Kraft has written and published in a variety of genres including drama, fiction, non-fiction (essays, book reviews), autobiography, poetry, and opera libretti.

Barbara Kraft’s newest book Anaïs Nin: The Last Days was published in print form by Pegasus Books, September 2013; it was an e-book in 2011 by Sky Blue Press, San Antonio, TX. Critical comment includes: Thinking of Anaïs Nin blog;  Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, the LA Years; Artsbeat: An Insightful Memior – Anaïs Nin:  The Last Days; Anaïs Nin’s Last Days:  KCRW’s Lisa Napoli talks to Barbara Kraft and Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, at the end.

Anaïs Nin: The Last Days is currently available on Amazon and on Smashwords. It is also available directly from iPad (through the iTunes store), Nook, the Sony Reader, as well as other Kindle-friendly devises such as the iPhone and is available through nearly every credible device worldwide.

PUBLISHED WORKS:
When Kraft published The Restless Spirit: Journal of a Gemini, recounting her struggles to achieve individual freedom “as an artist who is a woman in a wealthy, sophisticated society,” Carlos Baker, definitive biographer of Hemingway (Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story), wrote, “In the annals of confessional literature, Barbara Kraft’s book stands out strongly because of her intelligence, her sharp perceptiveness, the power of her prose and the enthralling personal story she has to tell.”

A review in the L.A. Times said, “There can be no question that this extraordinary journal is a work of excellence. Its poetic merit alone places it beyond the routine categories of thought and art… The Restless Spirit will undoubtedly be “a valuable document in the history of woman’s evolution.” So Anaïs Nin, the ultimate woman diarist and the author’s own mentor and teacher predicts.”

SELECTED PUBLISHED ARTICLES, ESSAYS AND REVIEWS:

“Recollections of Anais Nin by her Contemporaries,” Ohio University Press, 1996
“Anais Nin A Biography” by Deidre Bair reviewed for Los Angeles Times Book Review, 1995
“An Edited Life: The Death of Anais Nin (an exerpt) Anais Nin: A Book of Mirrors, Sky Blue Press, Michigan, 1996
“The Last Days of Henry Miller,” Henry Miller: A Book of Tributes, 1931-1994, Standish Books, 1994
“The Last Days of Henry Miller,” The Hudson Review, New York, Fall 1993
“Historic Houses: Anais Nin’s House of Light – The Diary comes to Fruition in Los Angeles,” Architectural Digest, January 1984
“Art is What Artists Do,” on John Baldessari, for Articles, a Publication of Cal Arts, 1984-85 issue
“The Universe of Sidney Sheinberg,” Columbia, the Magazine of Columbia University, 1984
“A Conversation with Henry Miller,” Michigan Quarterly Review, The University of Michigan, 1981
“Interview: Eugene Ionesco,” Canadian Theatre Review, York University, Downsview, Ontario, 1981

SELECTED RADIO INTERVIEWS AND PRODUCTIONS FOR KCRW, A NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO STATION (89.9 FM)

Transforming OC, a two-part documentary written and produced for KCRW

Writer, narrator and producer of Transforming OC, a two-part documentary on the opening of the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. The first part of the hour-long documentary traced the dynamic changes in culture and commerce that occurred in Orange County over the first half of the 20th century; the final segment celebrated the September 2006 opening of the new Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. The program is available as a CD premium from KCRW and is the station’s salute to the commitment of the visionary developer Henry Segerstrom and his family. The program was also broadcast over KUSC-FM, the radio station affiliated with the University of Southern California. (2006)

Host of the following selected KCRW “Politics of Culture” series:

The Los Angeles Opera’s “Recovered Voices – A Lost Generation’s Long Forgotten Masterpieces,” project, with Los Angeles Opera Music Director James Conlon, March 2007.

The Los Angeles Opera’s February 2007 production of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht’s sardonic masterpiece The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Participating in the program were Los Angeles Opera Music Director James Conlon, Philip Kennicott, culture critic for the Washington Post, and Thomas May, Seattle-based music critic, author of Decoding Wagner, and senior music editor at Amazon.com. February 2007.

Memorial program on Alfred Kazin, the ‘last public intellectual’ with Lee Siegal of The New Republic, Ann Fadiman, The American Scholar, and Morris Dickstein, Distinguished Professor of English at City University New York and director of CUNY’s Center for the Humanities.

Katharine Graham, owner and publisher of The Washington Post, on the publication of her biography Personal History.

Concert Program Annotator:
A trained musician and pianist, Kraft has written program notes for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Hollywood Bowl, the International Society of Contemporary Music, Ambassador Auditorium, Pasadena, UCLA’s Center for the Performing Arts, and most recently for the annual Summer Festival at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara.

HONORS/AWARDS

Gold Award, 2000 Excellence in Marketing and Publications, University Continuing
Education Association, Washington DC

Board of Advisors, the Marilyn Horne Foundation, New York

Goethe Institute Fellowship for travel in Germany

Registered Reader at the Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

Ohio State University Award for Maud Gonne, an original radio drama written and produced for KPFK Pacifica Radio.