Peter, Josh

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Peter, Josh

PERSONAL: Male. Education: Northwestern University, received degree.

ADDRESSES: Home—LA. Agent—c/o Greg Dinkin, Venture Literary, 315 Bleecker St., Ste. 103, New York, NY 10013. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA, sports enterprise writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Writing Award, Associated Press Sports Editors, 1993; Best Sports Story awards, Louisiana Press Association, 1998, 1999; Enterprise Writing Award, Associated Press Sports Editors, 2002; Freedom Forum/American Society of Newspaper Editors Award for Outstanding Writing on Diversity, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders: A Year inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour, Rodale (Emmaus, PA), 2005.

Contributor to Sporting News.

ADAPTATIONS: A 1993 piece about a mentally handicapped man adopted by a high school football team in South Carolina was adapted for film and released by Columbia Pictures as Radio, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: An accomplished sports writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Josh Peter tackled a 2000 assignment to cover a local Professional Bull Riders (PBR) event by spending a week profiling a star rider who lived in the New Orleans area and eventually attended his first bull-riding competition. In an interview with New West contributor Allen M. Jones, Peter commented on his reaction: "These were athletes like none I'd ever seen. And I just got swept up in the visceral thrill of it all, not to mention the cowboy culture. By the end of the event, I knew there was a book here." After spending a year following PBR athletes around the country, Peter chronicles his experiences in Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders: A Year inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour.

Booklist reviewer Wes Lukowsky called Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders "a penetrating portrait" of the sport of bull riding, adding that "this is a tough book to walk away from." "For readers who have never thought of bull riding as a sport, Josh Peter's book is going to open a new world," wrote Steve Weinburg in Nola.com. "For readers who already think of bull riding as a sport, Peter's book is going to take them inside that world in ways probably unimagined…. Peter is a dogged reporter, a keen observer and a clear writer. He has taken the exotic and skillfully turned it into the quotidian."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 2005, Wes Lukowsky, review of Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders: A Year inside the Professional Bull Riders Tour, p. 16.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2005, review of Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, and Bull Riders, p. 903.