Bio
Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author and (semi) fearless immersion reporter who combines lively narrative with deep research to explore everything from the gritty world of a maximum security prison to the grueling world of professional ballet; from the wild, wild west of the anti-aging movement to the hidden world of Alzheimer’s sufferers; from the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship to the full court press of women’s basketball. She is the author of 11 works of narrative nonfiction, including her most recent, Free: Two Years, Six Lives and the Long Journey Home, which chronicles the rocky road of reentry from long-time incarceration. Her previous book, A Grip of Time: When Prison is Your Life, was based on more than three years of running a writers’ group for men serving life sentences in a maximum security prison. Other work includes Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts and My Midlife Quest to Dance The Nutcracker; Counterclockwise: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging; My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, A Daughter, A Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence; Pacific Northwest Book Award winner Dancing with Rose (published in paperback as Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s), Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl