Vanden Heuvel, Katrina 1959-

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VANDEN HEUVEL, Katrina 1959-

PERSONAL: Born October 7, 1959, in New York, NY; daughter of William and Jean (Stein) vanden Heuvel; married Stephen F. Cohen, December 4, 1988; children: Nicola Anna. Education: Princeton University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1982.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Offıce—c/o The Nation, 33 Irving Plaza, Fl. 8, New York, NY 10003-2332.

CAREER: Magazine editor. Chief researcher for "Sunday Newspaper Parody" and research editor for "True Facts" section of National Lampoon, 1978; Esquire, research assistant, summer, 1978; Nassau Weekly, Princeton, NJ, staff writer, 1979-81; Nation, New York, NY, editorial intern, 1980-81, assistant editor, 1984-89, codirector of editorial internship program, 1984-86, editor-at-large, 1989-93, acting editor-in-chief, 1994-95, editor-in-chief, 1995—; Closeup, ABC-TV, production associate for documentary unit, 1982-83; We/Myi (formerly Vyi i Myi), cofounder and coeditor, 1990—. Summer intern at the office of Senator Edward Kennedy, 1979-81; commentator on WBEZ-FM Radio, 1984-89; visiting journalist, Moscow News, 1989; coordinator, Conference of Investigative Journalism After the Cold War, 1992. Frequently serves as a commentator on American politics on CNBC, CNN, and MSNBC.

MEMBER: Council on Foreign Relations, Correctional Association of New York (board of directors), The Institute for Women's Policy Research (board of directors), The Century Association, The Institute for Policy Studies (board of trustees), The World Policy Institute (board of directors), and The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (board of directors).

AWARDS, HONORS: Olive Branch Award, 1988, for a special issue of Nation titled "Gorbachev's Soviet Union: After Two Years"; Maggie Award, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 1994; public service awards from the Liberty Hill Foundation, the Correctional Association, and the Association for American-Russian Women.

WRITINGS:

EDITOR

(With husband, Stephen F. Cohen) Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev's Reformers, Norton (New York, NY), 1989.

The Nation, 1865-1990: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Victor Navasky) The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2000.

A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001, Thunder's Mouth Press (New York, NY), 2001.

(And author of introduction, with Robert Borosage) Taking Back America, Nation Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to magazines and newspapers, including Interview, Progressive, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Third World Quarterly, Washington Post, and Vanity Fair. Writes Editor's Cut Weblog for Nation Web site.

SIDELIGHTS: Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor-in-chief of the popular, unconventional, leftist magazine the Nation, has become familiar in face and thought to the American public since she first joined the publication in 1980. Her work in the field of journalism has garnered much attention, including praise, scorn, and respect, but critics in general praised the anthologies she has edited, including The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture and A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001.

In The Best of the Nation, vanden Heuvel and coeditor Victor Navasky selected contributions from nearly ninety authors to represent the last ten years of twentieth century writing. Topics addressed in the book include the Gulf War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, and the Clinton administration. While politics abound, some writings focus on social and cultural issues such as poverty and AIDS. Essayists, novelists, poets, and illustrators featured in this collection, include E. L. Doctorow, Arthur Miller, Gore Vidal, Calvin Trillin, Susan Sontag, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Levine, Art Spiegelman, and Gary Trudeau. "As I read an anthology, I like to jot down favorite authors and titles," revealed Tim Walker in a review of The Best of the Nation for the Austin Chronicle. "If I can find a problem with the pieces in this book, it's that they produced a reading list more massive than I could address in an entire year," Walker stated. Booklist's Mary Carroll was also pleased with the selection of authors, commenting on their "lively, opinionated commentary on issues that matter." Library Journal contributor Stephen L. Hupp praised the book's content, dubbing The Best of the Nation an "excellent work," and confirmed that, "the volume presents an alternative history to the 1990s" as the editors pointed out in their opening.

A Kirkus Reviews contributor called vanden Heuvel's next project, A Just Response, "a valuable collection that raises as many questions as it answers." The anthology is primarily composed of writings by Nation journalists, presenting a variety of opinions, predictions, and emotions on the terrorist attack that rocked New York City and America from some of the people who were closest to the tragedy—New York City journalists—as well as contributors from around the country.

The book opens with a collection of weekly reports on ground zero written by Nation peace and disarmament correspondent Jonathan Schell. Of these writings, Willa Thayer wrote in Cairo's Al-Ahram, "In what I think is an apt summation by Schell of not only his views, but also those of volume contributors, he writes on 10 October 2001: 'The world is sick. It cannot be cured with America's new war. The ways of peace—adopted not as a distant goal but as a practical necessity in the present—are the only cure.'" In addition to Schell, Nation contributors include columnist Katha Pollit, former executive editor of Columbia Journalism Review Michael Massing, radical columnist Alexander Cockburn, and then-Nation-columnist Christopher Hitchens. Other notable figures who have added insight to this volume include University of California professor emeritus Chalmers Johnson, Hampshire College professor of peace and world security studies Michael T. Klare, and former controversial literary critic Edward Said. The writers tackle the tragedy from all aspects, criticizing post-attack American foreign policy and the press' post-attack distortions of the truth, examining the derivation of anti-American cultural attitudes, advocating disarmament, predicting the global effects of the act, and questioning appropriate social justice for the tragic loss of life and feeling of security Americans have dealt with since the turbulent event.

One Publishers Weekly contributor suggested that "those who found the early coverage of America's 'War on Terror' to be monotonous will appreciate the Nation's radical point of view." Also commenting on the rehashing of journalistic opinions that followed the event, Jackie St. Joan pointed out in the Bloomsbury Review, "Although many of the ideas expressed in this collection seem worn at this point, the book gives readers a chance to delve more deeply into and reflect on theories, logic, and values underpinning progressive thinking about September 11th and its aftermath. Happily," St. Joan continued, "some articles also contain fresh or recently revived information we can all use."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Bloomsbury Review, September-October, 2002, Jackie St. Joan, review of A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001, pp. 5-6.

Booklist, April 15, 2002, Margaret Flanagan, review of A Just Response, p. 1378; August, 2000, Mary Carroll, review of The Best of the Nation: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture, p. 2103.

Book World, October 13, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990: Selections from the Independent Magazine of Politics and Culture, p. 12.

JQ: Journalism Quarterly, winter, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 68.

Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2002, review of A Just Response, p. 17.

Library Journal, September 1, 2000, Stephen L. Hupp, review of The Best of the Nation, p. 231.

New York Times Book Review, November 26, 1989; September 15, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, August 30, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 79; April 1, 2002, review of A Just Response, pp. 69-70.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), October 13, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 8.

Vanity Fair, December, 1990.

Village Voice, January 15, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 50.

Washington Monthly, May, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 54.

Whole Earth Review, spring, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 21.

Wilson Quarterly, 1991, review of The Nation, 1865-1990, p. 86.