Fricke to launch monthly blog for Oz Foundation
The International L. Frank Baum & All Things Oz Historical Foundation is excited to announce that John Fricke will start doing a monthly blog for the foundation. It will officially launch on the non-profit foundations website on the last Friday in March. The website address is www.allthingsoz.org .
The Grammy award nominee, best selling author, and two time Emmy Award winner writes “I’ve been fascinated and captivated by Oz (and its authors, illustrators, films, stage shows, products, and events) for decades. I first saw the famous MGM THE WIZARD OF OZ movie on television when I was five, and it happily changed the course of my life. I discovered THE WIZARD OF OZ as a book at age six and as a book series when I was seven. (Did you know there are forty official “Oz books”…and countless others besides?)
“At eight, I began to research L. Frank Baum, who wrote the first fourteen Oz books; as a result, I knew how to spell the name of his birthplace — Chittenango! — long before I could even pronounce it. I started to correspond with Oz writers, artists, and collectors at age eleven, when I first joined The International Wizard of Oz Club. Over the years, I’ve been privileged to meet many of the Munchkins from the movie, plus Judy Garland (“Dorothy”) and Margaret Hamilton (“Miss Gulch”/”The Wicked Witch of the West”).Finally, I’ve had the honor of emceeing Chittenango’s annual festival since 1990: a wonderful first-weekend-of-June affair which now carries the joyous title, Oz-stravaganza!
“All of this has led to their invitation to me to discuss “All Things Oz” on the website on a monthly basis — and I’ll do everything I can to make the blog entertaining, informative, and fun for all who share (or are even just curious about) L. Frank Baum and the unforgettable characters and countries created by him and his compatriots!”
One of the group’s trustees, Marc Baum said that the young foundation is thrilled to get the official spokeperson for Warner Brother (who owns the MGM rights to the 1939 film) to write something for their audience.
“To have someone like Mr. Fricke join our foundation for this monthly series is amazing. It is like being able to host a short master class in the OZ universe.”
The group is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization and a chartered historical foundation in New York state. They run the annual Oz-stravaganza festival, as well as the All Things Oz museum in Chittenango. They are also trying to save the historic Baum-Neal house in Syracuse.