Leavenworth, Geoffrey (M.) 1953–

PERSONAL: Born January 8, 1953, in Orlando, FL; son of William (a physician) and Elizabeth (a home-maker and nurse; maiden name, Hall) Leavenworth; married Simone Simpson (an attorney), August 12, 1978. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of Texas at Austin, B.J., 1975.

ADDRESSES: Office—400 Main Building, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78713. Agent—William Contardi, Brandt & Hochman, 1501 Broadway, Ste. 2310, New York, NY 10036. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Freelance journalist in Texas, 1976–96; University of Texas at Austin, special assistant to the president, 1996–. Assistant editor of a restaurant magazine; Texas Business, staff writer, beginning 1978; University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, science writer, 1987–89; restaurant critic for Texas Monthly; editor for Pearl and Biomedical Inquiry.

MEMBER: Writers League of Texas, Texas Speechwriters Association.

AWARDS, HONORS: Katy Award, Press Club of Dallas, 1988, for magazine article; Robert Fenley Science Writing Award, Association of American Medical Colleges, 1989, for science reporting.

WRITINGS:

Historic Galveston, photographs by Richard Payne, Herring Press (Houston, TX), 1985.

Isle of Misfortune (novel), TCU Press (Fort Worth, TX), 2003.

Contributor of more than 500 articles to periodicals, including New York Times, Time, and Christian Science Monitor.

SIDELIGHTS: Geoffrey Leavenworth told CA: "At the age of ten, I was the editor and publisher of the Bayou Press, which provided comprehensive news coverage of the north shore of a very short stretch of Dickinson Bayou. The neighborhood served by the newspaper was bordered by an abandoned pecan orchard, a dairy farm, and an abandoned gambling casino. Dickinson was a quiet unincorporated corner of Galveston County, Texas, until the Manned Spacecraft Center was built about ten miles away in the early 1960s. Suddenly, Bayou Drive and the rest of the hamlet, thick with aerospace engineers and astronauts, was thrust into the space age.

"A graduate of the New Mexico Military Institute and the University of Texas at Austin, I have worked as a writer, editor, and journalist for almost my entire adult life. In college I was the editor of Pearl, a general interest magazine named for Janis Joplin. The monthly publication was a supplement to the student newspaper, the Daily Texan, with a circulation of 40,000. After graduation in 1975 and a stint as an assistant editor at a restaurant magazine, I began contributing to the New York Times, Texas Monthly, and other publications.

"I joined the staff of Texas Business in 1978, working in its Dallas and Houston offices. Three years later I answered the siren call of freelance life once again. During the 1980s I covered the space program in Houston for Time magazine. I also served as a restaurant critic for Texas Monthly, riding what I came to describe as the 'red snapper circuit,' a territory that included the Kemah waterfront, Galveston Island, and Bolivar Peninsula.

"In 1985 I received one of my favorite assignments—writing the text of Historic Galveston, a book on Galveston architecture illustrated with the remarkable photography of Richard Payne. In addition to my freelance work, I also was the first editor of Biomedical Inquiry, a magazine published by the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.

"In the early 1990s I wrote frequently on health care topics and served as a contributing editor to several publications in the field. For six years I was the chief speechwriter for the president of the University of Texas."