Bio
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Rip Rense spent
five years
reporting for the Valley News (now Daily News of Los Angeles)
five years reporting for the L.A. Herald-Examiner under the legendary
Jim Bellows, and
ten more as a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times. As a freelancer, his
feature articles and commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune,
Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Examiner,
Denver Post, San Diego Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Atlanta Constitution & Journal, San
Jose Mercury News, Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Milwaukee Journal, Eugene Register-Guard, and other
major U.S. dailies---as well as magazines including TV Guide, People, Los Angeles,
Emmy (the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences magazine),
Silver Kris, Musician, Performing
Songwriter, and ICE. He was Hollywood columnist for TV Guide
(Canada), and for five years official biographer of the Academy of Television's Hall of Fame
magazine. Prior to founding The Rip Post in 2002, he wrote an award-winning weekly on-line column, The Rense Retort.
His Greater Los Angeles Press Club-award-winning Riposte, is carried weekly on this site
(currently on hiatus.) The column won two Greater Los Angeles Press Club
honorable mention awards, for columns about the late historian,
Iris Chang, and a tribute to
Jim Bellows, and a first place award in the
"Best On-Line Column" category, for his tribute to the late
Catherine Seipp, in 2007. Mr. Rense is also a producer, having originated and executive-produced albums for the venerable American a cappella group, The Persuasions, including a tribute to his friend, Frank Zappa, Frankly A Cappella---The Persuasions Sing Zappa, and one to the Grateful Dead, Might as Well--The Persuasions Sing Grateful Dead. Rense further coordinated and wrote notes for The Persuasions' multi-award-winning children's album, On The Good Ship Lollipop. In 2009, he produced the definitive live Persuasions album, The Persuasions Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop, and in 2011, produced an expanded, remixed, and reinvented version of The Persuasions' Grateful Dead sessions, Persuasions of the Dead (on Zoho.) Mr. Rense has written extensive liner notes for albums by the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, The Persuasions, Jerry Lawson & Talk of the Town, Paul Zollo, as well as concert program notes for Tom Waits and the Florida Orchestra. Founding classical music reviewer for the Valley News, he has also written about classical music for decades, and in 2002 broke the news in the New York Times of the restoration of a lost Chopin prelude. He is well known for having covered the Beatles extensively for a variety of publications, and is a longtime contributing editor to Beatlefan, the oldest Beatles publication in the U.S.. In 1982, while at the Herald-Examiner, Mr. Rense wrote the first comprehensive look at unreleased Beatles music, a nine-part series entitled "Off The Beatle Track," which generated international headlines and won the Valley Press Club Award for "Best Feature Series." Mr. Rense is also the author two novels, The Last Byline ("One of the top 40 works of L.A.fiction"---California Writer) and The Oaks---as well as two non-fiction works, "Less Than Satisfying Encounters With Humanity," and "Bad Words." He will soon publish a two-volume set of short fiction. Mr. Rense includes among his ancestors the Rippeys and Shearers of Ireland, who helped settle Pennsylvania, fight the Revolutionary War, and run the Underground Railroad, which smuggled slaves out of the South. He enjoys Laurel & Hardy, W.C. Fields, Obon dancing, and Puccini. He is a Jodo Shinshu Buddhist, and is kind to animals. © 2002-11 Rip Rense. All rights reserved. |
