Author Signing with Melissa Newman, Author of Head Over Heels

Join us on Thursday, November 16th at Elm Street Books at 6PM for an author signing with Melissa Newman, author of Head Over Heels. Melissa Newman will be in conversation with Kristen Glosserman, author of If It’s Not Right, Go Left: Practical and Inspirational Lessons to Move You in a Positive Direction.
Description
An invitation to the private world of Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman, one of America’s most iconic couples, in a lavishly illustrated oversize photo book affectionately curated by their daughter Melissa Newman.
Their love story is the stuff of Hollywood legend. Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman became not only movie stars and stage actors, but also artistic collaborators, political activists, and philanthropists whose legacies are expansive and enduringly modern.
This visually immersive oversize book chronicles their romance through the photographs of an impressive list of contributors, including:
Richard Avedon
Sid Avery
Ralph Crane
Bruce Davidson
John Engstead
Leo Fuchs
Milton H. Greene
Philippe Halsman
John R. Hamilton
Leonard McCombe
Gordon Parks
Sanford Roth
Roy Schatt
Lawrence Schiller
Sam Shaw
Bradley Smith
Stewart Stern
David Sutton
These striking images—many rare and some never before published—are accompanied by snapshots, letters, handwritten notes, and family treasures. Together they beautifully illuminate the connection between two complex, passionate artists who opened their hearts and minds to each other for over half a century. This book is an homage to the possibility and power of love.
Melissa Newman was blessed to be born into an artistic family. Primarily an artist and jazz vocalist, she is also a writer and third generation teacher. She lucked into a lucrative career singing jingles, and around the same time began assistant teaching in various disciplines at a women’s correctional facility in New York, a role she would continue in for almost twenty years. She has also continued to lead art and vocal workshops in various other communities. As a visual artist she has designed everything from packaging to theater posters to tattoos, and has shown her porcelain sculptures and paintings in galleries in New York and Connecticut. She also continues to perform with her jazz trio and quartet.
Melissa was born in Los Angeles and raised following her parents back and forth between coasts, attending five different schools by the time she reached sixth grade. It took five colleges and eight years before she attained a bachelor’s degree focusing on art and education, graduating from Sarah Lawrence a year before her mother and little sister.
In 2002 she and her husband bought the house her parents had purchased in Connecticut in 1961. Her parents moved next door, and together they formed a hive of creativity and a nest of mutual affection for three generations of family. They have two sons who continue the proud traditions of voracious appreciation, creativity and consumption of art, and continue to teach and pass on to others.
“Music, visual art and drama have always been part of the family DNA. I have been lucky enough to be an insider to my parents artistic process as well as the nuances of their relationship. The two things are inexorably intertwined. The more I thought about it, the more I felt the photographs and writings in this book needed to be collected and sent into the world in a particular way, and that perhaps I brought enough of a distinct perspective to make something unique. I wanted to capture some of the layers, the humor, the beauty and complexity of their relationship. I wanted it to feel immersive, the way I think they were immersed in each other. Once I began this journey I was gobsmacked by the list of photographers who chronicled them. I tried to include not only unseen material, but also some of the less obvious choices from familiar series. My friend, co-creator and editor Andrew Kelly was a sleuth of the highest order. We let the images lead us, reveling in unexpected visual and textual juxtapositions. Together we pared away until we felt we had something we felt was worthy of them.”