About Roger
A Michigan native, Roger has spent his life bringing stories to a wider public, via journalism, books, movies and now theater. His travels have covered the globe and his interests are equally as expansive.
He is the Michigan based author, film producer, journalist and playwright who heads the Heartland Independent Film and Drama Forum. His company Glenside Productions is home to three award winning feature films he cowrote and produced, Coming Up For Air, Pilot Error and Waterwalk. His new play Old Heart, adapted from Peter Ferry’s novel premiered in Detroit and Muskegon, Michigan. It will be on stage in 2024 at the Vero Beach, Florida Theater Guild, and other Midwestern cities and the Netherlands.
After graduating from the University of Michigan where President Harlan Hatcher helped lead an unsuccessful effort to block him from becoming the University of Michigan Daily editor, he wrote books, magazine and newspaper articles before joining the San Francisco Chronicle. He subsequently worked at the San Jose Mercury News and the Oakland Tribune where he was the paper’s travel writer. During that time he also covered the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and interviewed Bill Harris, the Symbionese Liberation Army member who kidnapped media heiress Patty Hearst in 1974.
In 1993 he founded RDR books which published a wide list of adult nonfiction and children’s fiction that he personally sold on visits to hundreds of bookstores, chains and libraries across the country. One of those titles, the Lexicon by Steve Faulkner, was the subject of a lawsuit brought by J.K. Rowling. The case was settled and the book that defines more than 2,300 names and terms in the Harry Potter series has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide.
Another RDR book, Steve Faulkner’s Waterwalk was adapted for his first film produced in 2012. This drama tells the story of Faulkner’s attempt to paddle the 1,000 mile discovery route of the Mississippi with his son Justin. The disappearance of Air France 447 in the south Atlantic for 22 months was the basis of his second film Pilot Error was followed by Coming Up For Air, a mental health drama that has won six best feature awards at festivals worldwide. His coscreenwriter Deborah Staples starred in this film and has won seven best actress awards. The film also won a best director award for Robert Cicchini. The film continues to screen widely across the country in partnership with mental health organizations.
His articles have appeared in Esquire, the Atlantic, Wired, STAT News, the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Wall Street Journal, the Jerusalem Post and many other publications. He is also senior editor at Flight Safety Information. His books include the Michael Moore biography Citizen Moore, Hillsdale: Greek Tragedy in the American Heartland and most recently GROUNDED and Angle of Attack with Captain Shem Malmquist. He is also the editor of the bestselling trouble travel series, I Should Have Stayed Home that has been widely translated.
His first novel, Patty Hearst: A love story (A true crime novel) will be published this fall. by Lexographic Press in Chicago.
After living in California for many years, Roger married the director of the Hackley Public Library, Marty Ferriby, in Muskegon, Michigan where they now live. They have three children, Jonathan and Elizabeth Rapoport and William Ferriby.