Dean Shapiro:  

Life and Career Although I've experienced many "careers" since graduating from Ramapo College of New Jersey with a B.A. in History in 1974, I've always considered myself, first and foremost, a journalist. I've been writing for publications for 42 years, going back to my freshman year in Rockland Community College. Not to brag too much, but I've had six books published, one of which -- THE BLOOD COVENANT-- was made into a TV movie that aired on CBS in 1993 (PROPHET OF EVIL: THE ERVIL LeBARON STORY starring Brian Dennehy). Portions of my book were quoted in a NEW YORK TIMES bestseller, Jon Krakauer's UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN. In 2008 I published a novel titled THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT. It's about a reporter who goes undercover to expose a polygamous cult leader and nearly loses his life after getting involved with one of the leader's wives. My two most recent books are HISTORIC PHOTOS OF STEAMBOATS ON THE MISSISSIPPI and HISTORIC PHOTOS OF LOUISIANA (2009 and 2010), published by Turner Publishing Company of Nashville, Tenn. The LOUISIANA PHOTOS book is being reissued in paperback in the fall of 2011. I've also had about 3,000 articles published in about three dozen publications nationally, internationally and in the New Orleans area where I have been living for 30 years. My first career position after leaving Ramapo College was as a researcher for NBC News in New York and I stayed with them for six years. Then, while on vacation in New Orleans in 1980, I met Lorraine "Lainey" Goodey, who would become my wife for 16 years and the mother of my two children (now 29 and 24 respectively). I moved to New Orleans the following year and I've lived in the Deep South ever since. We were divorced in 1997 and she passed away in October 2011 in Mobile, Alabama. I stayed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and for two days afterward, and was an eyewitness to much of the destruction that occurred here. I evacuated for a week to the state capital in Baton Rouge, then returned to almost no damage to the apartment building that I live in and managed for six years. Today most of the city has recovered but we still remain vulnerable to the next "big one" that may hit. My daughter, Heather, graduated from the University of South Alabama in Mobile with a B.A. in Sociology in 2007. She is now a corrections officer with the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office and, since February 2011, the wife of Robert Jones, formerly of Mobile. My son, Jonathan, is a junior at ...Expand for more