Lauren Kessler is an award-winning immersion reporter and narrative nonfiction writer who specializes in exploring invisible subcultures in our midst. Combining lively storytelling with deep research, she has written about everything, from the gritty world of a maximum security prison (A Grip of Time) to the grueling world of ballet (Raising the Barre) to the surprisingly vibrant world of those with Alzheimer’s (Dancing with Rose). She ran a writing group for lifers inside a maximum security penitentiary and volunteers as a mentor and résumé-writing coach at a prison reentry services nonprofit. Founder of two graduate programs in narrative journalism, she currently teaches storytelling for social change at the University of Washington and for the Forum of Journalism and Media in Vienna. She is, by nature if not by birth, an Oregonian.