Bay Area Iron Master Al Zampa: A Life Building Bridges

Photographer and writer John V. Robinson is the author of six previous books including Spanning the Strait: Building the Alfred Memorial Bridge (2003) and Bridging the Tacoma Narrows (2007). With degrees from UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellow in Folklore and Popular Culture in 2006 and was a California Council for the Humanities recipient for documentary photography in 2007. Robinson teaches English at California State University, East Bay. Isabelle Maynard (1929-2007) was born in Tientsin, China and immigrated to California in 1948. An actor, writer, painter and oral historian, Maynard is best known for her book China Dreams: Growing up Jewish in Tientsin (U of Iowa Press, 1996). She also published dozens of short stories in literary magazines and is the author of the play The Ace: An Ironworker's Story of Heroism, Risk and Recognition on the Golden Gate Bridge produced in 1986.