Scratching the Surface: Adventures in Storytelling by Harvey Ovshinsky
Scratching the Surface: Adventures in Storytelling is a deeply personal and intimate memoir told through the lens of Harvey Ovshinsky’s lifetime of adventures as an urban enthusiast. He was only seventeen when he started The Fifth Estate, one of the country’s oldest underground newspapers. Five years later, he became one of the country’s youngest news directors in commercial radio at WABX-FM, Detroit’s notorious progressive rock station. Both jobs placed Ovshinsky directly in the bullseye of the nation’s tumultuous counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. When he became a documentary director, Ovshinsky’s dispatches from his hometown were awarded broadcasting’s highest honors, including a national Emmy, a Peabody, and the American Film Institute’s Robert M. Bennett Award for Excellence. Wayne State University Press
A storyteller should give a reader “a sense of community, of belonging, and that’s what storytelling does, it’s a shared experience.” — Harvey Ovshinsky, author, educator and storyteller
“Leave it to Harvey Ovshinsky to create a new genre, the biotext, where memoir meets textbook. With its mix of life struggles, creative escapades, and production war stories, Scratching the Surface reads like a fireside chat with a storytelling sage. I’ll be keeping this trove of inspiration and concrete advice on my writing desk for years to come.”
– Desiree Cooper, author, filmmaker, Kresge Artist Fellow, and Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist
“Harvey is a master storyteller with a passion for creating inspiring films and television programs. He’s driven by his love of helping others tell their own stories, so if you have one to tell, Scratching the Surface is an invaluable resource and a great guide to unleashing your own creativity.”
– Bill Pace, television and feature film producer on A League of Their Own; HBO’s A Private Matter; PBS’s LateNight America; and movies for CBS, ABC, NBC, and Hallmark Hall of Fame
About the Author: Harvey Ovshinsky is a veteran educator and a multimedia journalist whose lifelong passion for telling Detroit stories was once described by the Detroit Metro Times as being “a colorful and fantastic voyage, at times brave and visionary.” Ovshinsky’s memoir, Scratching the Surface: Adventures in Storytelling (2020) was published by Wayne State University Press,
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