FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 7, 2002 CONTACT Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 AUTHOR TO GIVE SPEECH ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Vera Anderson, photojournalist and author of "A Woman Like You: The Face of Domestic Violence," will speak at Drake University on Tuesday, March 12. Anderson's speech, which has the same title as her book, is free and open to the public. It will start at 7:30 p.m. in Bulldog Theater in Olmsted Center, 29th Street and University Avenue. Anderson has photographed thousands of well-known faces, including those of Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz and Mia Farrow. But her most compelling portraits were inspired by stories of battered women who are in jail for killing their abusers. She began a photo essay on domestic violence in 1991 after reading a newspaper account of members of a support group inside a California prison who had launched a letter-writing campaign to draw attention to battered women serving time for killing their abusers. As she delved into the issue, she got calls and letters from women across America. The end result was her book, a collection of photos of 34 women and their accounts of what happened, why they stayed and how they did – or in some cases did not – survive to tell their tale. "A Woman Like You: The Face of Domestic Violence," won the 1998 Small Press Book Award. Anderson is working on a second book on the subject and has become an outspoken advocate for fighting domestic violence. She has been a photojournalist since 1975 and is now the Los Angeles bureau chief of the Latin American Cine Premiere Magazine and a Golden Globe-voting member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Anderson's speech at Drake is sponsored by the Student Activities Board in honor of Women's History Month. For more information, call (515) 271-3711.