| Mike D'Orso | |
| Birth Date: | October 12, 1953 |
| Birth Place: | Portsmouth, Virginia |
| Occupation: | Author, journalist |
| Nationality: | American |
Mike D'Orso (born October 12, 1953) is an American author and journalist based in Norfolk, Virginia.[1]
He wrote Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood (1996), Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands (2002), and Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska (2006). His co-written books include Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998), written with U.S. Congressman and former civil rights leader John Lewis; Rise and Walk: The Trial and Triumph of Dennis Byrd (1993), written with New York Jet defensive end Dennis Byrd; and Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them (2011), written with actor and environmental activist Ted Danson.[2]
D'Orso's father was a U.S. Navy submarine officer and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. D'Orso was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and was raised in military base cities, including: Key West, Florida; San Diego, California; Charleston, South Carolina; and Frankfurt, Germany.[3] [4] He graduated with a degree in philosophy from the College of William and Mary in 1975 and earned a master's degree in English from William and Mary in 1981.[5]
D'Orso was a staff writer for Commonwealth Magazine (1981-1984), features writer for The Virginian-Pilot (1984-1993), and contributor to Sports Illustrated magazine (1988-1993).[6] Seven of his books have been best sellers: Rosewood: Like Judgment Day and Body For Life (both The New York Times);[7] [8] Walking With the Wind (The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post);[9] [10] Like No Other Time and In Praise of Public Life (The Washington Post); Rise and Walk (Bookstore Journal National Christian Bestsellers);[11] and Winning With Integrity (Business Week).[12] Walking With the Wind also won the 1999 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was selected for Newsweek magazine's 2009 list of "50 Books For Our Times".[13] [14]
D'Orso's work often involves issues of social justice. His first book, Somerset Homecoming (1988), written with Dorothy Redford, was about Redford's investigation into her ancestors' experience as slaves in North Carolina.[15]
Like Judgment Day discussed the 1923 Rosewood massacre, and the survivors' pursuit of reparations seventy years later.[16]
Walking With the Wind was a biography of John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement during the 1960s.[17]
Eagle Blue was about rural Native American villagers in arctic Alaska shifting from a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, trapping and fishing to a modern cash economy.[18]
Plundering Paradise described the social and environmental impact of thousands of Ecuadorians moving to the Galapagos Islands in search of jobs.[19] [20]