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James Fallows

James Fallows - James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States, and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter. His latest book, China Airborne, will be published in May.
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James Fallows is based in Washington as a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He has worked for the magazine for nearly 30 years and in that time has also lived in Seattle, Berkeley, Austin, Tokyo, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai, and Beijing. He was raised in Redlands, California, received his undergraduate degree in American history and literature from Harvard, and received a graduate degree in economics from Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. In addition to working for The Atlantic, he has spent two years as chief White House speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, two years as the editor of US News & World Report, and six months as a program designer at Microsoft. He is an instrument-rated private pilot. He is also now the chair in U.S. media at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia.

Fallows has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times and has won once; he has also won the American Book Award for nonfiction and a N.Y. Emmy award for the documentary series Doing Business in China. He was the founding chairman of the New America Foundation. His two most recent books, Blind Into Baghdad (2006) and Postcards From Tomorrow Square (2009), are based on his writings for The Atlantic; he is at work on another book about China. He is married to Deborah Fallows, author of the recent book Dreaming in Chinese. They have two married sons.

Fallows welcomes and frequently quotes from reader mail sent via the "Email" button below. Unless you specify otherwise, we consider any incoming mail available for possible quotation -- but not with the sender's real name unless you explicitly state that it may be used. If you are wondering why Fallows does not use a "Comments" field below his posts, please see previous explanations here and here.

Beijing Birthday in NYC, Boston, DC

By James Fallows
Jan 26 2009, 6:07 AM ET

I have gone out of my way to mention (eg here and here) how much I have enjoyed and learned from Howie Snyder's hour-long documentary My Beijing Birthday. The premise sounds a little odd -- Chinese-speaking guy from Brooklyn goes to stand-up comedy school in Beijing with little Chinese kids -- but it is engrossing and instructive.

BeijingBday.jpg
It's not yet in general release, but showings are coming up on the East Coast on these days: January 29-30 in New York, Feb 2-4 in Boston, Feb 6 in Washington DC.

Times, places, and details after the jump. Very much worth checking out.

______




From Howie Snyder, list of East Coast Screenings of "My Beijing Birthday", Jan. 29 - Feb. 6

New York
Thursday, Jan. 29 at the Asia Society, 7 - 9 pm. Address: Auditorium, 725 Park Avenue at 70th Street Tel: 212-794-1332

Friday, Jan. 30 at Columbia University, 5 - 7 pm. Address: Davis Auditorium, Schapiro Center, 120th St. between Broadway and Amsterdam Tel: 212-854-1754
Boston 
Monday, February 2 at Harvard University, 5 - 7 pm. Address: Austin Hall East, Harvard Law School 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge. Sponsored by East Asian Legal Studies and the Fairbanks Center for Chinese Studies Map here:

Wednesday, February 4 at Hult International Business School, 6 - 8 pm Address: EF Education Building, 1 Education Street, Cambridge Sponsored by the United Nations Association of Greater Boston. For info contact info@unagb.org
 
Washington, D.C. 
Friday, February 6 at Sidwell Friends School, 7 - 9 pm. Address: Caplin Theater, Kogod Arts Center 3825 Wisconsin Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. Tel: 202-537-8100

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