Tamara L. Roleff

Background

Tamara L. Roleff was born on November 27, 1959, in Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States. She is the daughter of Richard A. Fahey and Linda E. Schoenrock.

Education

When Tamara Roleff went to college, her intention was to become a veterinarian. It wasn't long, however, before she discovered that she was baffled by organic chemistry, a requirement she needed to fulfill if she was to become a vet. She drifted along in school until forced to declare a major in her junior year. She had taken a lot of English literature classes, as she loved to read, and so she decided to major in English. In 1981 she received a Bachelor of Science degree at Iowa State University.

Career

After graduating, Tamara Roleff didn't have a clue what she was going to do with her degree. The employers were not at all anxious to hire her because she had a college degree in English. But she finally got a job entering orders for a mail-order printing company. She did proofreading for them as well, then customer service. After four years, she decided she needed to do something new in her life, so she tried to get a job in advertising. She ended up writing a copy for another mail-order company that sold stamps and coins and collectibles. This was a great job for two years until the company had to lay off employees, including Roleff.

Then she started working for newspapers, writing stories, and from there she got a job, editing the Lifestyles section of a small-town paper in North Carolina. As her husband was in the military, so they moved around a lot. Just as she was getting tired of the deadlines of working for a newspaper, they moved to Okinawa, Japan, for a year. She took the year off and thought about what she wanted to do, and she decided she wanted to become an editor for a book publisher. She was lucky enough to move to San Diego, California, which had a couple of publishing companies, and she got a job at Greenhaven Press in 1995, where she has worked since. When her husband's job forced them to move away from San Diego, she was lucky enough to be able to continue working for the same company on a freelance basis.

In her job for Greenhaven Press, she contributed edited titles to several book series, including Opposing Viewpoints, History Firsthand, and Current Controversies, which allowed Roleff to research a number of hotly debated social issues. In her books for the Current Controversies series, for instance, she edited the titles Gay Rights, Native-American Rights, and Genetics and Intelligence.

For titles such as Suicide, Global Wanning, Sex Education, and Civil Liberties, Roleff assembles a number of essays representing a diverse selection of views on the topic, as well as illustrations, a list of relevant organizations, and bibliographies for use in more in-depth study. In Suicide, an extensively revised version of a 1992 work, Roleff includes Pope John Paul II, physician Thomas Quill, and others, who debate issues such as whether suicide is a personal right, the reason for escalating suicide among adolescents, and the legalities of assisted suicide. Hate Groups includes essays authored by the United States Senator Orrin Hatch, David Kopel, United States Supreme Court Justice Thomas Scalia, and former president Bill Clinton who present several sides of the freedom-of-speech issues, surrounding the treatment of hate crimes and the social effects of hate-group activity, providing both high school and college students.

Achievements

• Tamara Roleff is a known and recognized author and editor. She is particularly famous for her work at Greenhaven Press. In 2002 she was invited to enter Inner City Poverty for the Harry Chapin Media Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Alcoholism

    (This book provides young people with information on chall...)

    2010
  • Criminal Justice

    (The authors in this anthology examine controversial issue...)

    2003
  • Beauty Pageants

    (Beauty Pageants explores the many issues of beauty pagean...)

    2014
  • Cocaine and Crack

    (Cocaine and Crack provides an overview of the incidence o...)

    2007
  • Civil Liberties

    (Civil Liberties is a collection of essays discussing both...)

    1999
  • Performance Enhancing Drugs

    (In this book, essayist Jesse Haggard tells readers that p...)

    2010
  • Steroid Abuse

    (Although anabolic steroids were developed for legitimate ...)

    2010
  • Hate Groups

    (Hate Groups discusses the seriousness of hate groups and ...)

    2001
  • Domestic Violence

    (In Domestic Violence, the authors debate the seriousness ...)

    2000
  • Hate Crimes

    (Hate crimes are those perpetrated against a particular in...)

    2001
  • Genetic Engineering

    (Genetic Engineering discusses the moral and ethical issue...)

    2008
  • AIDS: Opposing Viewpoints

    (In this anthology, scientists, activists, and dissenters ...)

    1998
  • Cyberbullying

    (This title in the Issues That Concern You series explores...)

    2012
  • Privacy

    (This book explores the issues surrounding privacy. It pre...)

    2011
  • Is Torture Ever Justified?

    (This book examines topics surrounding torture. In the wak...)

    2010

Interests

• golden retrievers and traveling

Connections

Tamara L. Roleff married Keith W. Roleff on March 17, 1984.

Father:

Richard A. Fahey

Mother:

Linda E. Schoenrock

husband:

Keith W. Roleff