Getting My Quid Pro Quo (after years of interviewing others)

The first article (below) ran while I was a film critic in the 1980s, in Tampa, FL. Ironically, the person who interviewed me was one of the film critics for the University of South Florida Oracle, the newspaper I had been editorial editor and film critic of when I was at school there. In the interview story photo I’m wearing my Barney’s New York cranberry-colored velvet blazer, the coolest (well, it was the 1980′s)  jacket I ever owned. I went out to the campus to speak about film, in my capacity as Tampa Tribune film critic. Did I really say all that stuff? Or did she make it up? It was 10,000 years ago. Who cares?

The second story is from the Sunday Oregonian in the book section, in the late ’90s.

LITERARY SNAPSHOT GREGORY TOZIAN

Oregonian, The (Portland, OR) – May 31, 1998

Author: JEFF BAKER – of The Oregonian staff

WHO:

Gregory Tozian

WHAT:

Writer, playwright, journalist, environmental activist, copywriter and marketing director.

WRITER:

The 47-year-old Tozian has just published a book of short stories, “Doll Head Eater” (Future Tense Books, $8.95). He’s also completing “Fidel’s Cuba: A Revolution in Pictures,” a coffee-table book of photographs by Osvaldo and Roberto Salas, a father and son who worked as personal photographers to Fidel Castro from 1959 until the mid-1960s. Tozian was introduced to their work by a friend, Ted Anderson of Portland, and wound up writing an introduction and captions for the 110 black-and-white photos. “Fidel’s Cuba” will be published in November by Beyond Words Publishing of Hillsboro and Thunder’s Mouth Press.

PLAYWRIGHT:

Tozian has written five plays. One of them, “Topless Eggshell Thin Aluminum Body,” is a one-act play currently running at Theater! Theatre!, 3430 S.E. Belmont St., as part of “Life and Death on the American Road.” Another of his plays, “Fort Byron,” was nominated for an Oregon Book Award.

JOURNALIST:

Tozian spent eight years at the Tampa Tribune, first as a reporter and suburban bureau chief and then as the paper’s movie critic. He moved to Paris in 1985 and spent almost two years as a free-lancer, writing features and travel pieces for American newspapers and European magazines. For the last 12 years, he has been a contributing editor to Organica Quarterly, a quarterly journal of arts and sciences.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVIST:

Tozian was the press officer for the Do It Yourself committee, which sponsored a 1992 ballot measure to close the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant. The measure failed, but PGE closed Trojan shortly after the election.

COPYWRITER/MARKETING DIRECTOR:

Tozian ‘s day job is at Soloflex, where he writes press releases and copy for the Hillsboro fitness company’s print and television advertising. He met Soloflex founder Jerry Wilson on the Do It Yourself campaign and has been with the company since 1992.

RECOMMENDED READING:

He’s stuffed with research for the Cuba book and recommends Jon Lee Anderson’s recent biography of Che Guevara as “a great example of what a biography can really do.”

READING:

Tozian will read from “Doll Head Eater” at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside St. – Jeff Baker