Do we need critics? Should we take reviews seriously? How much does the critic's credibility have to do with his or her prose, and what makes a review worthy and entertaining — to write or to read — in and of itself?   

"Critics Talk Shop: Writing Books, Music, Food, Film, and Why it Matters" features Kenneth Turan, David Ulin, Jonathan Gold and Evelyn McDonnell. It is organized and moderated by Dinah Lenney of the Master of Professional Writing Program.

Jonathan Gold is L.A. Weekly's restaurant critic and the author of Counter Intelligence: Where to Eat in the Real Los Angeles. He has been restaurant critic for California, the Los Angeles Times and Gourmet, where he was the first food writer ever to be nominated for a general national award in criticism. He has won James Beard Awards for both magazine and newspaper restaurant reviews. In 2007, Gold became the first food writer to win a Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

Evelyn McDonnell has been writing about popular culture and society for more than 20 years. She is the author of three books: Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock 'n' Roll, Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Bjork and Rent by Jonathan Larson. She co-edited the anthologies Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap and Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth. She has won several fellowships and awards, including an Annenberg Fellowship at USC.

David Ulin is the book editor for the Los Angeles Times and author of 2004's The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith. He received a California Book Award for editing Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology. Ulin's essays have been featured in The New York Times Book Review, The Nation and The Atlantic Monthly. Ulin taught in the Creative Writing Program at Antioch College and will teach a workshop on reviewing at the USC's MPW in the spring of 2010.

Kenneth Turan is film critic for the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio's Morning Edition and the director of the Times' Book Prizes. A graduate of Swarthmore College and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, he has been the Times' book review editor and a staff writer for The Washington Post and TV Guide. Turan is the author of Never Coming To A Theater Near You and Now In Theaters Everywhere, published by Public Affairs Press. He is also co-author of Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke. His latest book is Free For All: Joe Papp, the Public and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told. Turan teaches in the Master of Professional Writing Program at USC and is on the board of directors of the National Yiddish Book Center.

 

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