Michael J. Schumacher

His career began with interviews of writers he admired, such as Studs Terkel, George Plimpton, Jay McInerney, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Carol Oates, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Raymond Carver for Writer’s Digest magazine, which he transformed into the books Reasons to Believe: New Voices in American Fiction and Creative Conversations: The Writer’s Complete Guide to Conducting Interviews.{{Cite web|url=https://shepherdexpress.com/wehaa_articles_redirect/6541/|title=King of Kenosha|first=David|last=Luhrssen == Allen Ginsberg and Dharma Lion ==

Schumacher spent considerable time in New York City interviewing Allen Ginsberg Kirkus Reviews called it a "Strong, wonderfully absorbing life of Beat bard Allen Ginsberg that breaks new ground in its critical analyses of the poet’s work. Schumacher goes over the events in Ginsberg’s life with an intelligence that bonds us to the emotionally battered poet. … Rings the doorbell on your heart, your brain, and your love of great verse.”{{cite web | last=Schumacher | first=Michael Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia said that “One of the things Dharma Lion makes clear is that Ginsberg cannot be pigeonholed as just a spokesman for outcasts and radicals, for the down-and-out and oppressed. Though he certainly is that, Schumacher shows him to be, above all, a poet and teacher of the highest seriousness, whose thoughts, theories, and practice have never ceased to evolve in response to the needs of his society and his time.”{{Cite web|last=Nicosia|first=Gerald|author-link=Gerald Nicosia|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-11-29-bk-2440-story.html|title=The Beat of His Own Drummer : Dharma Lion: A Critical Biography of Allen Ginsberg By Michael Schumacher (book review)|date=November 29, 1992 Schumacher’s deep research into Ginsberg carried on when he wrote First Thought: Conversations with Allen Ginsberg, and edited Ginsberg’s South American Journals: January-July 1960, Iron Curtain Journals: January-May 1965, The Fall of America Journals 1965-1971, Family Business: Selected Letters Between A Father and Son -- Allen and Louis Ginsberg, and The Essential Ginsberg, A Volume of the Best of Ginsberg’s Poems, Essays, Songs, Letters, Journal Entries, Interviews, and Photographs. == Other literary works ==

Schumacher’s interest in the tumult of America in the 1960s was also evident in ''The Contest: The 1968 Election and the War for America's Soul'', forecasting the current era of media as entertainment over analysis, bipartisanship's unravelling, and public cynicism over electoral politics. His other biographies included Francis Ford Coppola: A Filmmaker’s Life, Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics, Al Capp: A Life to the Contrary, and Mr. Basketball: George Mikan, the Minneapolis Lakers, and the Birth of the NBA. Schumacher’s lifelong home near Lake Michigan influenced his decision to write a series of Great Lakes shipwreck histories, including one on the pop-song-famous Edmund Fitzgerald: Mighty Fitz: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Others were: ''Too Much Sea for Their Decks: Shipwrecks of Minnesota's North Shore and Isle Royale; Wreck of the Carl D.: A True Story of Loss, Survival, and Rescue at Sea; November's Fury: The Deadly Great Lakes Hurricane of 1913; Torn in Two: The Sinking of the Daniel J. Morrell and One Man's Survival on the Open Sea; and Along Lake Michigan: Shipwreck Stories of Life and Loss. A New York Times'' reporter gathering quotes for a man-in-the-street reaction story found him there eating a bratwurst for breakfast in 2004.{{cite web | last1=Kinzer | first1=Stephen | last2=Purdum | first2=Todd S. | title=Threats and responses: the national mood; An American Debate: How Severe the Threat? | newspaper=The New York Times | date=5 August 2004 |location=New York|language=en-US ==Works==

• • • • • • • • Shipwreck series • • • • • • Collaborations • • • • == Works as editor ==

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