Brat Pack America

From the fictional towns of Hill Valley, CA, and Shermer, IL, to the beautiful landscapes of Astoria and Brownsville, OR, from the iconic suburbs of the San Fernando Valley to the seemingly scary inner cities of Chicago, '80s teen movies had one thing in common: locations mattered. Perhaps moreso than in any other decade, the locations of the '80s teen movies were monumentally important. In Brat Pack America, Kevin Smokler gives virtual tours of your favorite movies while also picking apart why these locations are so important to these movies.

Including interviews with actors, writers, and directors of the era, and chock full of interesting facts about your favorite 80s movies, Brat Pack America is a must for any fan. Smokler went to Goonies Day in Astoria, OR, took a Lost Boys tour of Santa Cruz, CA, and deeply explored every nook and cranny of the movies we all know and love, and it shows.

Auteur

Kevin Smokler is the author of the essay collection Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books you Haven't Touched Since High School (2013) which the Atlantic Wire called "truly enjoyable" and the editor of Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, A San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2005. His work has appeared in the LA Times, Fast Company, BuzzFeed, Vulture, the San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, and on NPR. In 2013, he was BookRiot's first ever Writer in Residence.

As a performer, he's told stories onstage at events in San Francisco, Austin, New York and Boston. Since 2007, He's been the host of Fray Cafe, South by Southwest's annual evening of live storytelling. He's a two-time artist-in-residence of the Ragdale Foundation.

Kevin Smokler sits on the advisory boards of SXSW Interactive, Salon97 and Symbolia Magazine and speaks on the future of media and culture at companies (AOL), conferences (SXSW, The IdeaFestival) and universities (M.I.T, Stanford, University of Michigan) throughout North America.

He can be found on twitter at @weegee. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and cat.