Lonny Shavelson is a writer, photojournalist and physician whose articles and photographs have appeared in numerous publications: The New York Times, People, TIME, Newsweek, Family Circle, In These Times, Hippocrates (now Health), Lear’s, Mother Jones, Der Spiegel, The Los Angeles Times, California Lawyer, California Tomorrow, and the Sunday newspaper magazines of the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, Baltimore Sun, Cleveland Plain Dealer and others.

Shavelson has researched, written, and photographed stories about health care in the midst of war in Central America; needle exchange programs for drug addicts in Europe; people with mental illness in the U.S.; sharecropping and child labor in the fields of California; Southeast Asian and Central American refugees in the U.S.; the recruiting methods of young skinhead Nazis; TV evangelists vs. gays in San Francisco; towns where families have been made ill by the effects of hazardous wastes; and even about people who seek love through newspaper ads.

Shavelson is the author of five books: Personal Ad Portraits (De Novo Press, 1983), I’m Not Crazy, I Just Lost My Glasses (De Novo Press, 1986), Toxic Nation: The Fight To Save Our Communities From Chemical Contamination (John Wiley & Sons, 1993), co-authored with Fred Setterberg, A Chosen Death: The Dying Confront Assisted Suicide (Simon & Schuster, 1995), and Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge Our Misguided Drug Rehab System (New Press, release date Spring, 2001).

Shavelson’s photographs are distributed by Picture Desk International and Newscom. His literary agent is Felicia Eth.