Author

Rebecca Burns

@RebeccaBurns

Rebecca Burns is an Atlanta-based journalist and the former editor in chief of Atlanta magazine. She is the author of books that include Burial for a King, about the Atlanta aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and Rage in the Gate City, about a little-known 1906 Atlanta race riot. She teaches journalism at Emory University and is at work on her fourth book, an account of the Great Atlanta Fire of 1917.

"Why’s this so good?" No. 49: Wendy Brenner and the snake master

When the Winter 2005 issue of The Oxford American arrived, I flipped through the pages, glimpsed the reptilian close-ups accompanying Wendy Brenner’s profile of Dean Ripa, creator and caretaker of…