Works by
Holly Morris
(Writer)

Non-fiction

• Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine (2005)
  After years of working behind a desk, Holly Morris had finally had enough. So she quit her job and set out to prove that adventure is not just a vacation style but a philosophy of living and to find like-minded, risk-taking women around the globe. With modest backing, a small television crew, her spirited producer-mother, Jeannie, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Morris tracked down artists, activists, and politicos–women of action who are changing the rules and sometimes the world around them.
  
  In these pages, Morris brings to life the remarkable people and places she’s encountered on the road while filming her PBS series Adventure Divas and other programs. We meet Assata Shakur, a former Black Panther and social activist and now a fugitive living in exile in Cuba; Kiran Bedi, New Delhi’s chief of police, who revolutionized India’s infamously brutal Tijar Jail with her humanitarian ethic; New Zealand pop star Hinewehi Mohi, a Maori who reinvigorates her native culture for a new generation; and Mokarrameh Ghanbari, a septuagenarian painter and rice farmer who lives in the tiny village of Darikandeh on the Caspian plains of Iran, where her creative talents run counter to the government’s strict stance on art.
  
  Along the way, Morris herself becomes a certified Adventure Diva, as she hunts for wild boar with Penan tribesmen in the jungles of Borneo, climbs the Matterhorn short-roped to a salty fourth-generation Swiss guide, and memorably becomes the first woman ever to enter the traditional camel race of the Saharan oasis town of Timia.
  
  Intelligent, phenomenally funny, and chock-full of rich and telling details of place, Adventure Divas is a pro-woman chronicle for the twenty-first century. In a pilgrimage fueled by curiosity, ideology, and full-on estrogen power, Holly Morris has paved the way for all of us to discover our own diva within and set out on our own adventures.
  
  Also known as Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for Women Who Are Changing the World.

• Uncommon Waters: Women Write about Fishing (1998)

• A Different Angle: Fly Fishing Stories by Women (1995)

Video/DVD

• Adventure Divas: The Series (DVD)
  All eight episodes of this PBS documentary.  DVD and VHS versions of documentaries also available at Holly's site.

  • Cuba  VHS
    In Havana, a sizzling girl rap group cooks up a street performance for Holly and her crew. They tell her that in Cuba, a country that celebrates salsa, rap empowers: “We are like vitamins for little girls.” Hitching across the island country, Holly confers with a Santeria priestess, talks culture and feminism with a TV host and catches an impromptu drag race. She’s entranced by an erotic poet, explores a sunken ship, considers creative challenges with an independent filmmaker and gets revolutionary with a Black Panther in exile. Along the way, she’s haunted by the ghost of Che — and laid low by a few too many Mojitos.

  • India  VHS
    Taking on India is like plunging into a cauldron of spirituality — really good goop, but you could drown if you’re not careful. Adventure Divas wades through the land of deities and meets some ladies who revel in their country’s spiritual fabric and ethic of giving back. Journalist-turned-activist Ruchira Gupta, muckraker redefined, leads the crew through Mumbai’s red light district and around the flesh trade; humanitarian maven Alice Garg tackles poverty when she’s not collecting seashells in the desert; Delhi police chief Kiran Bedi pulls the rug out from under corruption; Ela Bhatt quietly incites economic revolution — using bangles as collateral; and classical and pop music icon Shubha Mudgal fills us in on the guru-dom phenom. Tune in for some enlightenment.

  • Iran  VHS
    The diva posse reaches top veil-ocity in the Islamic Republic of Iran. They grapple with the conundrums of theocracy and take in Iran’s obsession with poetry — all the while chasing divas in and out of the myriad public and private sectors that seem to define their lives. Shahla Sherkat publishes a feminist mag despite a prison sentence for ‘anti-Islamic behavior’ hanging over her head; Zahra Rahnavard advises reformist President Khatami when she’s not running a university; Pooran Farrokhzad continues the work of her poet-icon-rebel sister who died young in a car accident; taxi magnate Zahra Moussavi likes to “drive fast and take ladies where they want to go”; filmmaker Tahmineh Milani rocks Iran’s burgeoning film industry by taking home the Islamic Republic’s equivalent of the Academy Award; and 70-something Mokarrameh Ghanbari paints her passion.

  • New Zealand  VHS
    Hauling a caravan behind a ‘67 Valiant, the Divas crew does New Zealand. Holly’s welcomed into the home of famed pop singer Hinewehi Mohi and into the offices Prime Minister Helen Clark. Documentarian Gaylene Preston and Holly dish on Thelma and Louise and the risks involved in filmmaking — and life. A chance encounter with some “Land Girls” results in tea, cakes and hilarity amid the hay bales. Then Holly heads south to meet her favorite writer, the reclusive Keri Hulme, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The Bone People. The writer shuns the telephone, so Holly resorts to faxing. As adventures accrue, Holly ditches the struggling Valiant for a motorcycle to cross New Zealand’s alps to the South Island’s remote west coast to meet her elusive literary heroine.

See also:

• Reading the Water: Stories and Essays of Flyfishing and Life (1995) by Mallory Burton