James Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler says he wrote The Geography of Nowhere, "Because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work."

Home From Nowhere was a continuation of that discussion with an emphasis on the remedies. A portion of it appeared as the cover story in the September 1996 Atlantic Monthly.

His next book in the series, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, published by Simon & Schuster / Free Press, is a look a wide-ranging look at cities here and abroad, an inquiry into what makes them great (or miserable), and in particular what America is going to do with it's mutilated cities.

This was followed by The Long Emergency, published by the Atlantic Monthly Press in 2005, is about the challenges posed by the coming permanent global oil crisis, climate change, and other "converging catastrophes of the 21st Century."

His 2008 novel, World Made By Hand, was a fictional depiction of the post-oil American future. The sequel to that book, "The Witch of Hebron," is scheduled for publication in October 2010.

The Atlantic Monthly Press also published his novel, Maggie Darling, in 2004.

Mr. Kunstler is also the author of eight other novels including The Halloween Ball, An Embarrassment of Riches. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times Sunday Magazine and Op-Ed page, where he has written on environmental and economic issues.

Mr. Kunstler was born in New York City in 1948. He moved to the Long Island suburbs in 1954 and returned to the city in 1957 where he spent most of his childhood. He graduated from the State University of New York, Brockport campus, worked as a reporter and feature writer for a number of newspapers, and finally as a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1975, he dropped out to write books on a full-time basis. He has no formal training in architecture or the related design fields.

He has lectured at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, MIT, RPI, the University of Virginia and many other colleges, and he has appeared before many professional organizations such as the AIA , the APA., and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

He lives in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.

Justin Rashid

Photo by John Robert Williams
Traverse City, MI

Justin Rashid is President and CEO of American Spoon Foods, Inc. in Petoskey, Michigan.  He was born in Detroit in 1952.

Mr. Rashid grew up behind the counters of family grocery stores in inner city Detroit and spent his childhood summers hiking and foraging in Michigan’s north woods around his parent’s Wildwood cabin.  He received a B.A. in English from Wayne State University and was an actor in The Hilberry Repertory Theatre there.  After a brief acting career in New York City, he married Kate Marshall and returned to Northern Michigan in 1978 where they opened The Whole Foods Store in Indian River.  In 1979, he founded Berry Creek Foods to supply chefs with authentic ingredients from the farms and forests of Michigan and the Upper Midwest. 

In 1982, he and New York Chef Larry Forgione, co-founded American Spoon Foods, Inc. to produce the finest preserves in the world from Michigan fruits. The company was the first to market a line of specialty foods made from Michigan-grown fruits on a national scale and pioneered the marketing of Michigan Dried Red Tart Cherries.  In 1984, Rashid was a recipient of the James Beard Award in recognition of exceptional leadership in American Cuisine. In 1988, he was named by The Detroit News as Michiganian of the Year for his marketing efforts on behalf of Michigan agricultural products.  In 2005, Governor Granholm appointed him to serve on the Michigan Food Policy Council.  He also serves as copywriter for the American Spoon Catalog, winner of the Gold Award as best food mail order catalog at The American Catalog Awards in 1990. 

Today, Rashid’s company, American Spoon Foods, sells more than 100 different preserves, condiments and specialties through five American Spoon retail stores in the Michigan resort towns, www.spoon.com and hundreds of specialty retailers nationwide.  In 2001, American Spoon Café & Gelato opened on Pennsylvania Park adjacent to the company’s flagship store in downtown Petoskey, offering 24 original flavors of authentic Italian Gelato made on the premises.

Mr. Rashid says his work at American Spoon has been driven by a love of Michigan’s Northern Fruitlands and small towns, and a passion for capturing flavors that can’t be found anywhere else. He has served as a member of Petoskey’s Downtown Design Committee for twenty years. American Spoon specialty fruit products have been recognized by hundreds of the nation’s food writers and have received the National Association of Specialty Foods Trades Gold Award as best Jam, Jelly, Preserve or Spread.  In 2006, American Spoon Strawberry Butter was awarded the Gallo Family Gold Medal as Best Artisanal Condiment.  National Geographic Traveler called the company, “A National Treasure,” and noted that many of its products cannot be found on a commercial level from any other source.