Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Through a Glass, Darkly
WORK NOTES: with Stefan D. Bechtel
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://us.macmillan.com/author/laurenceroystains/ * https://klein.temple.edu/faculty/larry-stains
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Buffalo, NY.
EDUCATION:University of Rochester, B.A.; Columbia University, M.J.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Journalist and educator. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, Klein College of Media and Communication, associate professor of journalism, 2001—.
MEMBER:Phi Beta Kappa.
WRITINGS
New Shelter, founding editor, 1978-1982; Men’s Health, founding editor; Philadelphia, editor, 1987-1992.
Contributor to periodicals, including Washington Post, Worth, AARP, USA Weekend, Better Homes & Gardens, This Old House, Child, Sports Illustrated, GQ, Rolling Stone, Men’s Health, Philadelphia, Best Life, New York Times Magazine, and Money.
SIDELIGHTS
Laurence Roy Stains, who also writes as Larry Stains, holds decades of experience in the magazine industry. He is responsible for the release of such noteworthy publications as New Shelter, Philadelphia, and Men’s Health. He has also published articles in various other magazines, including Worth, Sports Illustrated, Better Homes & Gardens, This Old House, and Rolling Stone. As a teacher of journalism, Stains began working at Temple University as an adjunct professor in 2001 before moving on to full-time teaching. Prior to launching his magazine career, Stains attended the University of Rochester and Columbia University, where he obtained his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively.
What Women Want
What Women Want: What Every Man Needs to Know about Sex, Romance, Passion, and Pleasure is one of Stains’s books, written in cooperation with Stefan Bechtel. The book serves as an advice directory for men who are interested in improving their romantic and sexual interactions with women. The pair spoke with thousands of women to gather information, asking them about such topics as dating, communication, cohabitation, and sex—with sex taking up the majority of the book’s content. As a result, What Women Want is meant to clear up men’s misconceptions on how best to connect with the women in their lives on a romantic level. The women Stains and Bechtel speak with talk about some of their best and worst sexual experiences, as well as what they wish men would consider more often when it comes to bedroom activities. For the most part, burping and poor oral hygiene prove to be major turnoffs. Some women are more interested in unconventional sexual rendezvous, and express that sentiment clearly. Other women discuss how sex is different after marriage versus when they were single and indulging in casual encounters.
A reviewer on the Publishers Weekly website suggested that What Women Want is “perfectly suited for cover-to-cover reading or a quick perusal.” On the Southeastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services website, Dana Vigilante said: “This book was an absolute blast to read.”
Through a Glass, Darkly
Through a Glass, Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All was also written by Stains and Bechtel. The book focuses not just on Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous creator of the Sherlock Holmes character, but also escape artist Harry Houdini. The two shared an interesting relationship, which came about predominantly due to a persistent debate over the existence of the supernatural. It was during the two men’s lifetimes that talk of spiritualism, a concept involving the ability of the departed to communicate with the living, grew widespread. It was also during this period that psychics claiming to be able to speak directly to the dead first emerged. People from all walks of life began requesting help from these psychics in order to contact dead loved ones. Through a Glass, Darkly chronicles Houdini and Doyle’s attempts to uncover the truth behind whether the dead really could speak with the living—especially Doyle, who began as a firm skeptic and wound up deeply interested in contact with the supernatural and willing to believe it was possible. In the process of exploring the spiritualism movement and Doyle’s relationship to it, Bechtel and Stains also look into the rising political associations spiritualism developed over time, as well as the cultural impact.
A reviewer in Publishers Weekly found that Bechtel and Stains “offer a decent survey of the development of spiritualism.” Lincoln Journal Star Online contributor J. Kemper Campbell remarked: “This book would make a perfect companion for those readers awaiting spooky raps at the front door on Halloween night.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, April 3, 2017, review of Through a Glass, Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All, p. 66.
ONLINE
Lincoln Journal Star Online, http://journalstar.com/ (October 16, 2017), J. Kemper Campbell, review of Through a Glass, Darkly.
Publishers Weekly Online, https://www.publishersweekly.com/ (April 3, 2000), review of What Women Want.
Southeastern Arizona Behavioral Health Services Website, https://www.seabhs.org/ (July 25, 2006), Dana Vigilante, review of What Women Want.
Temple University, Klein College of Media and Communication Website, https://klein.temple.edu/ (January 17, 2018), author profile.
LAURENCE ROY STAINS has been the editor of Philadelphia Magazine and the founding editor of New Shelter. He has written for national publications, including The New York Times Magazine and The Washington Post. He is an associate professor of journalism at Temple University.
Larry Stains
Associate Professor of Practice
Department: Journalism
lstains@temple.edu
Office: 215-204-1844
Other: 215-204-8346
Annenberg Hall, Room 337
Biography
Like a lot of writers, Larry Stains started early. He grew up in a small town outside Buffalo, New York, and began writing bad science fiction when he was eight. In high school Stains edited the student newspaper, wrote poetry during his callow undergraduate years and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Rochester. Then Stains went to Columbia for a more practical grounding in journalism. After a brief stint in newspapers, he gravitated toward magazines. As an editor, he started up two magazines for Rodale Press: New Shelter, which briefly flourished during the 1978-1982 oil crisis, and Men’s Health, which has enjoyed a better run. Stains was also on staff at Philadelphia magazine from 1987 to 1992.
As a writer Stains has freelanced for many national publications—and continues to do so. He’s written for AARP; Better Homes & Gardens; Child; GQ; Men’s Health and its spinoff, Best Life; Money; The New York Times Magazine; Philadelphia; Rolling Stone; Sports Illustrated; This Old House; The Washington Post, USA Weekend; and Worth. He has co-authored five books and has been a finalist twice in the National Magazine Awards.
Stains came late to teaching. He first taught Magazine Article Writing at Temple as an adjunct professor in spring 2001. Eighteen months later, he was teaching full-time—and was hooked. As director of the Magazine sequence, Stains tries to get to know every student in the sequence by teaching the Introduction to Magazines course every semester. His teaching schedule also includes a rotation of: Advanced Magazine Writing, Magazine Article Writing, Magazine Editing and Design, and the graduate courses The American Magazine and Magazine Writing.
Education
Degree
Field
School
MJ
Journalism
Columbia University
BA, Honors
English/Political Science
University of Rochester
Through a Glass, Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All
264.14 (Apr. 3, 2017): p66.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Through a Glass, Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All
Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains. St. Martin's, $26.99 (320p) ISBN 978-1-250-07679-3
How did the creator of Sherlock Holmes, who once stated, "The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply," come to believe not only in communications from beyond the grave but in fairies? Readers in search of an answer will be left unsatisfied by this interesting but uninsightful look at the evolution of Arthur Conan Doyle's belief in the supernatural. The authors do not aspire to providing answers--they describe the book as a "jolly romp," writing that "While raising the profound questions inherent in this material, we aimed to favor high spirits, delicious speculations, and compelling scenes and characters." They do offer a decent survey of the development of spiritualism, starting with the mid-19th-century Fox sisters, who claimed that the dead communicated with them through a series of taps. And those unfamiliar with the details of Conan Doyle's life will learn about his initial skepticism regarding mediums and eventual turn to full-throated advocacy. However, the subject has been better served elsewhere, both in general biographies, such as Daniel Stashower's Teller of Tales, and in books focusing just on this aspect of Conan Doyle's life, such as Kelvin Jones's Conan Doyle and the Spirits. (June)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Through a Glass, Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All." Publishers Weekly, 3 Apr. 2017, p. 66. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A489813754/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=42c2aa25. Accessed 10 Dec. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A489813754
Review: 'Through a Glass Darkly' by Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains
J. KEMPER CAMPBELL For the Lincoln Journal Star Oct 16, 2017 (…)
St. Martin's Press
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“Through a Glass Darkly” by Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains, St. Martin’s Press, 303 pages, $26.99
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini were two of the most renowned and iconic figures of the early 20th century. Doyle, who had created the beloved detective Sherlock Holmes while still a struggling young Scottish physician, had become a prolific writer and acclaimed lecturer who was knighted in 1902 for his contributions to English literature. Houdini, born a Hungarian Jew named Erich Weisz, had become so adept at escaping from seemingly impossible circumstances that observers believed he must possess the paranormal ability to dematerialize his body.
“Through a Glass Darkly” is a fascinating book chronicling the contentious lifelong debate between the two men regarding the merits of spiritualism, the communication of living beings with those hidden behind the veil of death. The spiritualistic movement began when two adolescent sisters in upper New York allegedly began to contact the shades of deceased individuals. Equally sensitive women and men known as mediums found that they could accomplish remarkable feats such as moving solid objects, ringing bells, playing spectral musical instruments and foreseeing future events while channeling the disembodied spirits of the dead. These eerie phenomena had many reputable witnesses during the intimate gatherings known as seances.
As ludicrous as this sounds to 21st century ears, spiritualism was taken quite seriously in Victorian England and had an enormous worldwide following when the bloodletting during WWI and the influenza pandemic of 1918 caused virtually every family, including Doyle’s, to have deceased loved ones to contact. Since many mediums were female, spiritualism became linked to the burgeoning movement for women’s rights.
Seances were held in the homes of royalty and U.S. presidents as well as more humble abodes. The most eminent scientists and thinkers of the era subjected mediums to vigorous scrutiny.
Authors Bechtel and Stains are capable magazine journalists able to keep a suspenseful narrative spinning while maintaining open minds on their topic. Both Houdini, who died on Halloween in 1926, and Doyle who passed in 1930 vowed to contact their living spouses from beyond the grave if possible. Whether either succeeded is left to the discretion of the reader.
Paranormal subjects are still quite popular as shown by the recent box office success of the Stephen King movie “It,” the plethora of cable television offerings on spirit sightings, and the success of the annual Ghosts of Lincoln bus tour. This book would make a perfect companion for those readers awaiting spooky raps at the front door on Halloween night.
J. Kemper Campbell, M.D., is a retired Lincoln ophthalmologist who always looks forward to October in Nebraska.
What Women Want
Stefan Bechtel, Author, Laurence Roy Stains, Joint Author, Laurence Roy Stains, Author Rodale Press $31.95 (480p) ISBN 978-1-57954-093-7
More By and About This Author
Acknowledging fundamental differences between the sexes without falling into the trap of gender bashing or stereotyping, coauthors Bechtel and Stains take on the formidable task of guiding men through the seemingly endless contradictions that constitute what women want from men. Drawing primarily from the candid responses of more than 2,000 female interview subjects, they offer insight and practical advice fit for the romantic novice or pro on topics as diverse as ways to divvy the challenge of child care, differing communication styles (men's ""report talk"" vs. women's ""rapport talk""), dealing with a mate who earns more, tips for spicing up the marriage bed (including remembering to ""date"" you wife), the 12 commandments of dating (showering and brushing teeth top the list) and suggestions for ending a relationship. Above all, they stress the importance romance holds for most women. The authors cover nearly every imaginable topic related to living with and loving women, and men seeking help in the more mechanical aspects of lovemaking won't be let down; entire chapters are devoted to foreplay, oral sex, fantasies, orgasms and accounts of ""best sex ever."" A lighthearted approach and straightforward style (topic-specific chapters, highlighted main points, humorous analysis and plenty of charts) make this manual perfectly suited for cover-to-cover reading or a quick perusal. (Apr.)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 04/03/2000
Release date: 04/01/2000
What Women Want
by Laurence Roy Stains and Stefan Bechtel
Ballantine, 2002
Review by Dana Vigilante on Jul 25th 2006
This book was an absolute blast to read. As a single thirty-something, I enjoyed every single page. The entire book consists of interviews with women who range in age from early twenties to late sixties. The topics discussed are as personal as the input the women give. Topics range from threesome's, married sex vs. single sex and one very humorous chapter asking women to divulge the oddest place they have ever had sex (hands down, at a Grateful Dead concert was the most imaginative).
The goal of this book is basically to educate men as to what women want, desire and crave in the bedroom (and bathtub, handcuffs, hotel room, swimming pool, etc…). This book should be a mandatory read for all of the men who think they've cornered the market on sexual techniques, romance, passion and pleasure. The stories the women in this book tell about men they've dated and the sexual disasters that they've encountered kept me in stitches for the three nights that it took me to read the entire book. Personal hygiene among men was also spoken about. For the record guys, bad breath, passing gas and belching are all definite "don'ts", whether you are single, married or just plain old dating -- don't do it.
This book is geared toward both single and married men, as well as the young and old, as it discusses "dating" sex, "casual" sex, "married" sex and every other type of sex you can think of.
While the book does cover somewhat serious topics such as marriage and fatherhood and becoming a better lover after going through both, it tends more to be a lighthearted read geared toward men who really need to polish their sexual skills as well as re-educate themselves on what women today really want.