Author J.W. DURRAH holds a B.A. from Columbia University and an MFA from New York University where he established the first writing program for the prison population at Bellvue Hospital. His short story, SOMETHING TO REMEMBER was published in Essence Magazine and he has won several awards for his poetry.; His undergraduate paper analyzing the film, THE PAWNBROKER for its excellence, has been placed in the archives of MOMA. Mr. Durrah has written the words and lyrics for an all-black Musical, "HOW DO YOU SPELL WATERGAIT"? He is a Board Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist with over twenty years in practice and holds the title of Master Hypnotist. His novel, JACOB THE JEW IN PURSUIT OF THE ASIAN BlOOD MERCHANTS recaptures some of his experiences, adventures, and secrets whispered to him while living in the Far East. Mr. Durrah also holds a third-degree black belt in Moo Duk Kwan Karate awarded his first degree in Korea. Using an acting ensemble he organized from his neighborhood where in his free time he taught acting, stage managing, lighting, etc for the theatre, he produced and wrote an hour-length script for his cable tv show, J.W. DURRAH'S UNLIMITEDPEOPLE., INC., satirizing films, actors, and showcasing singers, poets, writers, entertainers in general; the show was filmed by NBC TV since his show was the most popular cable tv show. After premiering it on NBC'S TODY SHOW, a year or so later, NBC premiered their own (an eerily similar "version?") satirical comedy show, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE; Durrah's show was a precursor to SNL. Employed by the Amsterdam News, the city's largest black-owned newspaper, Mr. Durrah wrote reviews for both the theatre and was also a reviewer of movies. As a college professor, he has taught at Malcolm-King college, at Touro College, and at the College of New Rochelle where he taught a new course in Perceptual Psychology/Art; the course deal with the art of perception and how our mind tricks (or convinces) us that we are seeing what is not possible; viz., three-dimensionally on a two-dimension surface.. He has also recruited and organized young people an acting ensemble teaching and training them Stage Managers, Lighting for the theatre, acting, and directing. His ensemble performed plays written by Durrah in theatres all around Manhattan, all of them filling the roles of positions they have been taught to carry out including acting. Mr. Durrah has studied and continues to study; Chinese (Mandarin), Italian and Spanish. He worked briefly at the Church World Service where he served finding lodging, food, and clothing for South African students who are studying at Columbia University. Occasionally his school courses in Italian aided him in helping to translate refugees in need of help from the Church World Service; specifically, Romanians speaking Italian. As a hypnotherapist, Mr. Durrah has corrected the bad behavior of many clients and has been able to achieve interesting results using deep hypnotic trance. One client had a terrible stuttering disability but after a single session with Durrah, her stuttering no longer existed. He was able to stop one of his students from getting grand mal seizures; her doctor called and had a long conference with Durrah, and asked him to please continue working with the client and as long as he was under Durrah's care using hypnosis, she no longer had seizures of any type. Mr. Durrah suggested a program for Sloane Kettering Hospital for terminal cancer patients who had habituated to their pain medications. He was to use hypnosis to stop all pain and thereby replace meds of any kind. The idea was received with great enthusiasm by the hospital, but unfortunately, Durrah's personal schedule became too great and he was unable to initiate the program. Teaching at Touro College in the Bronx, Durrah offered to teach the staff "waking hypnosis" for the purpose of alleviating the stress students have prior to school exams, sometimes causing low scores.
