Season 5/Episode 4: Heather Pillar | Camera as a passport (May 2023)
If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, then Heather Pillar (Pil-ár) has countless stories to tell over a 25-year career that has led the talented photojournalist across seven countries in four continents, highlighted by her moving portrait series, memento Morrie: images of love and loss, spotlighting the last six months of Brandeis professor Morrie Schwartz’s (of Tuesdays with Morrie fame) life.
In the News
Exhibition of Heather Pillar's images
FotoNostrum, Barcelona, Spain
(April/May 2023)
Two Honorable Mentions for the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards
CULTURE & DAILY LIFE series: Morrie: Life & Death Matters
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WOMEN SEEN BY WOMEN series: Turning Points
JMCA was juried by renowned photojournalist, Barbara Davidson, 3x Pulitzer Prize,
Guggenheim Fellow, and winner of the Julia Margaret Cameron Award.
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@ photographs by Heather Pillar
Former broadcast journalist Ted Koppel interviews Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie. (approx 8 minute segment)
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Koppel asked, "It has crossed all kinds of cultural, ethnic, religious, racial boundaries. What are people getting out of it that they don't get out of most books?"
"Well, I've learned that the appeal of 'Tuesdays with Morrie' isn't my writing. I'm not Mark Twain! It's the story of a younger person who's a little lost and an older person who's about to leave the world who says: 'Let me tell you what I've learned.' Almost everybody can find themselves in one of those two characters.
CBS Sunday Morning
September 25, 2022
NBC's TODAY with Hoda and Jenna
September 27, 2022
In honor of the 25th anniversary of “Tuesdays With Morrie,” author Mitch Albom opens up about how the book changed his own life, as well as the lives of millions of readers. “He’s on my shoulder everyday of my life,” Albom says about the advice he got from his beloved teacher.
NPR All Things Considered
August 21,2022
As he faced death, Schwartz offered lessons in life.
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Among Schwartz' regrets during his conversations with Albom was how young people grasped onto what he called "the major cultural values, like money status and power ... and then you find out it's not a good life. It's too empty. There's no real substantial meaning but by that time it's too late."
Boston Globe
March 15, 2015
A PROFESSOR’S FINAL COURSE: HIS OWN DEATH
by Richard Harris
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The story of a retired Brandeis sociology professor, stricken with ALS — Lou Gehrig’s disease — who was given 12 to 18 months to live, was surprisingly upbeat. Rather than curling up in the fetal position, Morrie Schwartz irreverently held a memorial service for himself so he could hear friends tell him what he meant to them while he was still alive. Always the teacher, Morrie — that’s what he wanted to be called — decided to use whatever time he had left to conduct an ongoing class for friends and colleagues who’d stop by his Newton home — lessons on how to live as he stared death in the face.
