Spectral Evidence Author--Moira Johnston

Author/journalist Moira Johnston is the author of six books of non-fiction and dozens of articles for national and regional amgazines -- Vanity Fair, New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Esquire, Psychology Today, California, etc. Beginning her career as an investigative journalist, she was, first, a New York fashion artist and a CBC radio broadcaster. She won the nation's most prestigious award for magazine journalism, the National Magazine Award, plus two other major national awards, for her expose of the killer Firestone 500 tire in New West Magazine, "Hell on Wheels," which also led to Johnston appearing as lead witness in Congressional hearings and to the recall of the tire. Always concerned with social change and cultural issues, her work has ranged from an examination of the world's largest international aviation disaster in THE LAST NINE MINUTES (reviewed on the front page, New York Times Book Review) to a report on the moral vacuum and excesses of the corporate takeover wars of the 1980s, in TAKEOVER: THE NEW WALL STREET WARRIORS. Her National Geographic piece CANADA'S QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS: HOME OF THE HAIDA was credited by Canada's prime minister with having helped save one of the world's great wilderness rainforests and cultural treasures. Her most recent book was her 1990 ROLLER COASTER, on the rise, fall, and revival of the Bank of America.

Having seen business stories as the source of the best morality tales of the 1980s, Johnston sees more intimate human issues as the themes of the '90s. When the Ramona trial exploded into her life in the spring of 1994, she was writing a book about a personal journey by sea through the Queen Charlotte Islands with her closest friend, a painter whose tragic death months later in a fall from a cliff in France intensified the book's examination of home, family, nation, identity, and women's struggle to balance their art and their lives. That book was set aside for the irresistible opportunity to cover RAMONA V. ISABELLA, the landmark recovered memory trial that unfolded in a country courthouse just five minutes from her home in Napa, California -- the trial that became the centerpiece of her new book for Houghton Mifflin publishers, SPECTRAL EVIDENCE.

That gripping trial thrust Johnston to the heart of one of the most controversial social issues of the decade -- the recovered memory wars in which adult daughters' charges of incest have destroyed thousands of lives and families, challenged the most holy tenets of psychotherapyt, created schisms within feminism and psychology, tested the justice system, and launched the golden age of memory research. The Ramona trial changed the course of the memory wars, and put the 'perfect' American family on trial.

Currently married to a physician and living in Napa Valley, Johnston raised her two children as a single mother and freelance writer. Her son is an international banker in Eastern Europe; her daughter is a photojournalist in New York City.

He email address is moiraj@napanet.net

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		Author/journalist Moira Johnston is the author of six books of non-fiction and dozens of articles for national and regional amgazines -- Vanity Fair, New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Esquire, Psychology Today, California, etc. Beginning her career as an investigative journalist, she was, first, a New York fashion artist and a CBC radio broadcaster. She won the nation's most prestigious award for magazine journalism, the National Magazine Award, plus two other major national awards, for her expose of the killer Firestone 500 tire in New West Magazine, "Hell on Wheels," which also led to Johnston appearing as lead witness in Congressional hearings and to the recall of the tire. Always concerned with social change and cultural issues, her work has ranged from an examination of the world's largest international aviation disaster in THE LAST NINE MINUTES (reviewed on the front page, New York Times Book Review) to a report on the moral vacuum and excesses of the corporate takeover wars of the 1980s, in TAKEOVER: THE NEW WALL STREET WARRIORS. Her National Geographic piece CANADA'S QUEEN CHARLOTTE ISLANDS: HOME OF THE HAIDA was credited by Canada's prime minister with having helped save one of the world's great wilderness rainforests and cultural treasures. Her most recent book was her 1990 ROLLER COASTER, on the rise, fall, and revival of the Bank of America. Having seen business stories as the source of the best morality tales of the 1980s, Johnston sees more intimate human issues as the themes of the '90s. When the Ramona trial exploded into her life in the spring of 1994, she was writing a book about a personal journey by sea through the Queen Charlotte Islands with her closest friend, a painter whose tragic death months later in a fall from a cliff in France intensified the book's examination of home, family, nation, identity, and women's struggle to balance their art and their lives. That book was set aside for the irresistible opportunity to cover RAMONA V. ISABELLA, the landmark recovered memory trial that unfolded in a country courthouse just five minutes from her home in Napa, California -- the trial that became the centerpiece of her new book for Houghton Mifflin publishers, SPECTRAL EVIDENCE. That gripping trial thrust Johnston to the heart of one of the most controversial social issues of the decade -- the recovered memory wars in which adult daughters' charges of incest have destroyed thousands of lives and families, challenged the most holy tenets of psychotherapyt, created schisms within feminism and psychology, tested the justice system, and launched the golden age of memory research. The Ramona trial changed the course of the memory wars, and put the 'perfect' American family on trial. Currently married to a physician and living in Napa Valley, Johnston raised her two children as a single mother and freelance writer. Her son is an international banker in Eastern Europe; her daughter is a photojournalist in New York City. He email address is moiraj@napanet.net
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