Meet the Authors AUGUST Edition - Saturday, August 2nd 2025

About the Authors and their books:

Daniel Clavio is an educator, writer, and designer living in Santa Fe since 1980. He was a professional printmaker for 20 years, and he has taught at all levels from elementary through college. Daniel is also an advocate for Arts Education and Green Building issues. Dan's most recent book, a history of Zozobra, was published in September 2024 for the Centennial of Santa Fe's beloved monster, Old Man Gloom.

Zozobra & Santa Fe 1924-2024: 100 Years of Burning Gloom and Loving a Monster in The City Different, a profusely illustrated history of Zozobra, with many historic and contemporary photos and art, for adults and all ages.  Published in association with the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe.

Rain Dances is a colorfully illustrated children's read-aloud book on the Water Cycle.

Ananda Forest graduated from Yale Law School, taught English at a progressive private school in Brooklyn, worked as a carpenter and mechanic in upstate New York, and co-founded a shamanic teaching center in Vermont.  He studied shamanism with Michael Harner and Sandra Ingerman for ten years and later became a devotee of Neem Karoli Baba and Amma.  Ananda has been involved with twelve-step programs for over twenty-five years, and his journey in recovery directly informs his spiritual path.  He and his wife, iishana, live at the Rio Grande Refuge in Velarde, NM.

Good News About the World Falling Apart argues that the crises we face on Earth are the birth pangs of a species.   Humans have been here before.  We were at an inflection point of this magnitude when we first developed fire and language 200,000 years ago, and, again, ten thousand years ago when we learned how to germinate seeds.  Although these Turnings could have led to our extinction, each time we used our superpowers—imagination and intuition—to transform our despair and attain a new level of consciousness. 

The crises we face today announce a Third Turning. In times like these, we have always turned to the shamans among us, and it is no different today.  Just as such wise ones pioneered fire and language and the germination of seeds, they offer similar guidance today, but this time both the fire and the seed lie in our hearts.  Our work and our redemption today is to crack open our hearts, to kindle the fire inside, to germinate the Heart Seed within us so that we may become a courageous new heart-based species. 

Here For The Joy: A Memoir of Survival, Addiction Recovery, Spiritual Enlightenment, and In-Depth Personal Transformation describes how spiritual explorer Ananda Forest followed his bliss out of the narrow confines of a privileged upbringing, poisoned by abuse, alcoholism, and mental illness; first, by learning to build houses, work on cars, and make whiskey, and later by becoming a sober shaman. The ancient traditions of sweat lodge, vision quest, and tribal drumming led him to India, where he encountered Ram Dass and Krishna Das’s guru, Neem Karoli Baba, and Amma, “the hugging saint.”  These spiritual guides helped him to discover and live within the joy he had been seeking his whole life, the joy that can be found in the center of each of our hearts.

Dr. Bob Larsen is a working-class kid who grew up to become a ‘working man’s shrink’. He has more degrees than a thermometer.

Forsaking a career in molecular and cellular biology, Dr. Bob opted to attend medical school at Northwestern University where he was smitten by the field of psychiatry.  He completed a residency at UCSF, a Robert Wood Johnson fellowship at Stanford/UCSF, and an MPH at Cal.  As a Clinical Professor at UCSF School of Medicine, he shared his expertise in the fields of occupational and forensic psychiatry.  Dr. Bob served on the Industrial Medical Council for its entire thirteen-year existence. He has done yeoman’s work for impaired physicians, seriously injured workers, and all who confront stodgy bureaucrats in our health care system. He is a member of the American College of Psychiatrists and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

America’s Most Dangerous Jobs continues the tales of our country’s work force that began in Wounded Workers. This nonfiction sequel describes the 25 occupations found to have the highest fatality and serious injury rates in the U.S. These dangerous jobs were cross-referenced with cases over four decades from Dr. Bob’s occupational psychiatric practice. Some of these tales are heartbreaking, while others give us hope. They honor America’s workers who may not appreciate the danger of the jobs they do.