About this item
Dreamers and Schemers chronicles how Los Angeles's pursuit and staging of the 1932 Olympic Games during the depths of the Great Depression helped fuel the city's transformation from a seedy frontier village to a world-famous metropolis. Leading that pursuit was the "Prince of Realtors," William May (Billy) Garland, a prominent figure in early Los Angeles. In important respects, the story of Billy Garland is the story of Los Angeles. After arriving in Southern California in 1890, he and his allies drove much of the city's historic expansion in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Then, from 1920 to 1932, he directed the city's bid for the 1932 Olympic Games. Garland's quest to host the Olympics provides an unusually revealing window onto a particular time, place, and way of life.
About the Author
Barry Siegel, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, is a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He now directs the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine. His latest book, the widely-acclaimed Dreamers and Schemers (University of California Press, 2019) , chronicles how Los Angeles' pursuit and staging of the 1932 Olympics during the depths of the Great Depression helped fuel the city's transformation from a seedy frontier village to a world-famous metropolis. Siegel began at the Los Angeles Times in 1976 as a staff writer in the feature section and in 1980 became a national correspondent, pursuing a self-created assignment that involved no fixed beat, no relation to breaking news, and no time or space constraints. The unconventional narratives he wrote for The Times, many about communities struggling with moral dilemmas, took him all over the world. In 2003, Siegel left The Times to become the founding director of the Literary Journalism Program at UC Irvine.Siegel is the author of eight books - five volumes of literary journalism and three novels of legal suspense, including the Chumash County series. His narratives have garnered dozens of honors, among them two PEN Center West Literary Awards in Journalism, the Livingston Award, and the American Bar Association Silver Gavel AwardSiegel has a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from Pomona College. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Marti Devore. He can be reached via email at barry@barry-siegel.com and bsiegel@uci.edu. Visit his website at www.barry-siegel.com
