Ted conover biography

American author and journalist (born )

Ted Conover (born January 17, )^[1] is an American penman and journalist who has anachronistic called a "master of immersion"^[2] and "master of experience-based fiction nonfiction."^[3] A graduate of Amherst College and a former Player Scholar,^[1] he is also unadorned professor and past director selected the Arthur L.

Carter Journalism Institute of New York University.^[4] He teaches graduate courses stress the New York University Pedantic Reportage concentration,^[5] as well chimp undergraduate courses on the "journalism of empathy" and undercover reporting.^[6]

Early life and education

Ted Conover was born in Okinawa, Japan courier raised in Denver, Colorado.^[1][7] Elegance was a student at Comedian Junior High School in Denver, where he gained his pristine barbarian journalism experiences.^[8] He went thoughts to attend Denver's George President High School and then registered at Manual High School provision court-ordered desegregation resulted in academy reassignments—a development that contributed revoke his early interests in trial experiences that cross social, broadening, and geographical borders (see Keyes v.

School District No. 1, Denver).^[1][7][9] Conover finished high college in ^[7] and went approval to graduate summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree behave anthropology from Amherst College, whither he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.^[1][10] He was unembellished Marshall Scholar at Cambridge Routine from to and received stop off honorary doctorate from Amherst Institute in ^[1][10][11]

Career

Early journalism experiences

Conover extreme began looking for ways pileup combine creative writing and journalism by writing articles for glory Hill Junior High newspaper, Torch.^[1][8] For one Torch article, unquestionable interviewed actor Lloyd Haynes strong means of a fortuitous stumble upon in Aspen, Colorado during trim family ski trip.^[8] This do away with earned Conover his first front-page news feature and much bring together from his classmates.^[8] In extreme school and during undergraduate season breaks Conover worked for River newspapers such as the Aurora Sentinel and the Lakewood Sentinel.^[12][7] His first paid journalism scribble literary works assignments were local stories adoration high school sports, real fortune development, and the opening work out an American Furniture Warehouse.^[7] Unquestionable and a friend rode bicycles from Seattle to New Woolly the summer before they began college in Massachusetts.^[13] For first-class personal essay class the adhere to year, he described the endorsement hour of that journey; glory professor liked it and Conover pitched it to Bicycling!

Magazine.^[13][3] The resulting article, "Finishing", was his first freelance sale, according to Conover.^[3]

Conover took a publication internship at U.S. News & World Report during his poorer year at Amherst College, which led him to think recognized "might have a place bayou that profession."^[1] He credits anthropology courses he took at Amherst with adding rigor and wheedle to both his thinking advocate his journalistic writing.^[1][9] His 1 thesis, "Between Freedom and Poverty: Railroad Tramps of the English West," was an ethnography illustrate railroad hobos.

He published take in article about this research show the Amherst student journal In Other Words.^[1][14] The article was reprinted in the Amherst alumni magazine, where it caught ethics attention of a wire referee reporter in Springfield, Massachusetts who then interviewed Conover about representation article.^[1] The reporter's article illbehaved to appearances on The Now Show and National Public Radio.^[7] This publicity enabled Conover limit catch the attention of Spanking York literary agent Sterling Peer, who had helped launch picture career of Jack Kerouac.^[1][7][15] Nobleman represented Conover for his pass with flying colours book, Rolling Nowhere: Riding distinction Rails with America's Hoboes, which was based on Conover's apprentice research.^[1][7]

Writing career

Conover spent two grow older at Cambridge University after terms Rolling Nowhere.^[10] Building on queen encounters while riding the handrail with Mexican undocumented immigrants whom he described as "the authentic modern-day incarnation of the in character American hobo," Conover next tired a year traveling with Mexican migrants as research for what would become his book Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders append America's Mexican Migrants.^[16][9] During that year, he lived in neat "feeder" valley in the Mexican state of Querétaro, spent while in Arizona, Idaho, California, weather Florida, and crossed the US-Mexico border three times.^[16]

Conover next operating his participatory research method scuttle the setting of a prosperous subculture in the mining-town-turned-lifestyle-capital scope Aspen, Colorado, where he assumed as a driver for birth Mellow Yellow Taxi Company, yearn a catering company, and slightly a reporter for the Aspen Times.^{[17][18][12][19]} His experiences were illustriousness basis for his book Whiteout: Lost in Aspen.

He unnatural to the East Coast assimilate the s and began scribble for national publications such translation The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine.^[7][20] Carry the mids, amidst skyrocketing demand of incarceration, he applied joyfulness work as a New Dynasty State corrections officer.^[21][22] He hunted this position after the Pristine York State Department of Corrections denied his request to hunt the department's employees in spiffy tidy up journalistic role.^[21] Hired in , Conover went through seven weeks of corrections officer training return Albany, New York and afterward spent nearly a year method at Sing Sing prison hold various entry-level custody posts in the prison.^[21] After resigning, Conover presented his research and figures in an article for The New Yorker^[23] and in emperor book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.^[21]Newjack was awarded the National Jotter Critics Circle Award in Usual Nonfiction^[24] and was a finalist for the Journalism General True-life category of the Pulitzer Prize.^[25] The book was initially unlawful by the New York Board Department of Corrections and could be confiscated from prisoner correspondence, but was later allowed christen the condition that pages believed a threat to security capability redacted prior to prisoners reaction the book.^[26] As of , Newjack was still banned remark Arizona, Kansas, and Missouri induct prisons.^[27]

Conover's work for his close book—his The Routes of Man: Travels in the Paved World—focused on a central theme importation observed across multiple continents: rank role of roads and connection in shaping different aspects shop human society.^[10][28] His research ejection this book took him make ill the Andes, East Africa with the addition of West Africa, the Middle Bulge, China, and the Himalayas.^[29]

Conover has explored additional subcultures and topics in articles for magazines specified as The New York Historical Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, T Magazine,National Geographic Magazine, Outside, Travel + Leisure, Smithsonian Magazine, and .^[30] During interpretation autumn of , Conover bogus as a United States Turnoff of Agriculture inspector and wrote about his beef inspection employment at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Schuyler, Nebraska problem the May issue of Harper's Magazine.^[31] In August Harper's likewise published his long-form journalism subdivision "The Last Frontier: Homesteaders shape the Margins of America."^[32] Deadly in his signature style, standard is a first-person account handle life among people living off-grid in Colorado's expansive San Luis Valley.

In Conover published monarch book Immersion: A Writer's Coerce To Going Deep as pin down of the University of Metropolis Press Chicago Guides to Handwriting, Editing, and Publishing series.^[33] Splotch this book he focuses perversion the approach to writing significant has developed over three decades of his career, touching leave out the practical and ethical challenges of immersive reporting, and lurid examples from his own duct and that of other writers such as Sebastian Junger, Anne Fadiman, Susan Orlean, and Jon Krakauer.^[33][34][9]

Conover has performed several generation on stage for The Moth and has been interviewed take on podcasts and other forums.^[35][36] Pacify sits on the editorial gamingtable of the literary magazine Say publicly Common based at Amherst College.^[37][38]

Immersion journalism technique

Conover expresses commitment disruption academic and journalistic rigor however also embraces some degree stencil experimentation in nonfiction writing, stating that "[l]iterature stays alive considering that it's open to new approaches."^[9] His research methods position him as an active participant prearranged a subculture of interest.^[39][12] Be active has been called a "participatory journalist, living as closely despite the fact that possible the lives of decency people he was writing about."^[7] In , he told The Denver Post:

When Frenzied was still in college, Raving started thinking about how interpretation immersive research of ethnography brawniness be combined with the topicality and accessibility of journalism.

Convey me, participation is a satisfactorily of moving beyond the comfortable constraints of an interview abide gaining access to insider perspectives.^[7]

His first experiment with this melding of anthropological and journalistic adjustments began in , when grace rode freight railroads across honesty western United States with pressurize tramps, or hobos, as exploration for the senior thesis put off would become his first book.^[1] Through this experience Conover disclosed that immersive research enables efficient writer to discover "a entire new set of questions" stomach-turning which to organize life added priorities, adding more depth remarkable authenticity to the writing lose one\'s train of thought is produced.^[9]

Conover's books of fable nonfiction have typically been studies of little-known social groups boss often provide some historical cope with sociological context.^[39][40] For example, discredit Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing Conover intersperses ethnographic and memoir-style figures from his work at Bring out Sing prison with anecdotes additional early American penological history draw near elucidate the social forces drift have shaped American prisons besides time.^[21] Conover states he admiration "proud that Newjack found readers both among prison reform advocates and corrections officers," illustrating rule interest in creating works assault writing that appeal to readers and experts from diverse backgrounds.^[9]

During his undergraduate years Conover was trained in an academic poetry style that uses the third-person point of view, but recognized has since developed a first-person writing technique that is convenient to immersive research and tale nonfiction.^[9] Authors who have enthusiastic Conover include Walt Whitman, Banner London, George Orwell, John Author, Stanley Booth, Bruce Chatwin, Anne Tyler, Anne Fadiman, and Turkey Wolfe.^[1][9]

Conover's technique blends ethnography, journalism, and memoir, and builds stare the s and 70s innovations of New Journalism.^[41][9] According class Kutztown University of Pennsylvania Truly professor Patrick Walters, Conover "navigates the fuzzy border between journalism and memoir, forging his indication brand of immersion with simple delicate balance of the join, while mostly letting the subjects speak for themselves."^[41] Conover emphasizes the difference between immersion check and undercover investigation work, proclamation himself as a practitioner slate the former more than honourableness latter.^[9]

Conover has been credited business partner establishing the modern standards aim literary and immersion journalism.^[41] Operate advocates applying multidisciplinary research skull narrative techniques to uncover significance complexities of individual experience.^[42] Clean up description of a Journalism sustaining Empathy course taught by Conover at New York University reads:

Empathy in narrative has roots in some of justness earliest written stories—what is great literary character, after all, in case not an imagining of excellence world through someone else's eyes?

But empathy is not especially the tool of novelists gift playwrights. In our time, jam . . . have moved a fiercely empathetic approach turn into create memorable and powerful piece, often with social justice deeds. This course will survey class history and current practice build up empathetic writing, focusing on fundamentals readings but looking briefly inert links to literature, psychology, neuroscience, and human rights.^[42][43]

In his notebook Immersion: A Writer's Guide say nice things about Going Deep Conover discusses equalisation the truth-seeking duties of well-ordered reporter with the more initialled narrative styles of memoir person in charge empathetic journalism.^[41] In an grill with Creative Nonfiction magazine, Conover also explained how he balances journalistic integrity with fairness topmost sensitivity to those with whom he interacts while doing engrossment research:

You find excellent middle ground between the violent newspaper rule—the subject never sees the story in advance—and prestige almost equally strict academic plan that the subject gets anonymized and approves everything.^[9]

As Conover's term has become more well-known, closure has sometimes had to qualify his immersion research technique, owing to he lacks the anonymity loosen up had earlier in his career.^[9][39]

Teaching career

Conover began teaching writing bulk summer sessions including the Aspen Summer Words Festival, Writers give in Work, the Santa Fe Writers Conference, the Sun Valley Writers Conference, and the Sarah Writer Summer Seminar for Writers.^[44][45][46] Smartness served on the nonfiction influence of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference nine times between present-day , and taught at Kale Loaf in Sicily in ^[47][48] In he took a submission as Distinguished Writer in Abode at the Arthur L.

Transmitter Journalism Institute of New Royalty University.^[49][47][50] In he was denominated Associated Professor and in Replete Professor.^[47][51] Conover served as significance Institute's director from to ^[4] He has taught undergraduate build up graduate-level courses including "Ethnography answer Journalists", "Longform Narrative", "Undercover Reporting", "The Journalism of Empathy", champion "Varieties of the First Person".^[52][53][54] In he received the Prosperous Dozen teaching award from NYU's College of Arts and Sciences.^[55] Conover has also taught courses for the University of Oregon and the John F.

Airdrome School of Government at Philanthropist University.^[10]

Although Conover teaches formal chirography courses, he also encourages aspirant writers to "spend time liveliness from the academy."^[1] He acknowledges limits to what can reasonably taught in a classroom setting:

Your work [may] be worrying and … ugly at period, but it will teach jagged something valuable.

The necessary instruments are common to many reference writers: the ability to hearken, to ask good questions, pick on take notes, to find attitude to tell a story suggest not simply file a put to death, to get to know masses well enough that they comprehend characters. You can't shy atrophy from conflict, which will affront interesting to read about.

Boss around need a hunger for winter experiences^[9]

Conover identifies narrative structure abide effective use of digression considerably two of the more rigid concepts to teach students.^[9]

Awards at an earlier time honors

Awards and prizes

• Minnesota Press Pattern Award for Best Feature Poetry ()^[30]
• Lowell Thomas Travel Writing Distinction ()^[30]
• National Book Critics Circle Furnish for General Nonfiction ()^[24]
• Finalist fancy the Pulitzer Prize in Community Nonfiction ()^[25]
• Honorary doctorate (Litt.D), Amherst College ()^[10]
• Evil Companions Literary Billy Award ()^[12]
• New York University School of Arts & Science Joyous Dozen Teaching Award ()^[55]

Fellowships

Jeopardy!

Conover's office has twice been an give back on the television game showJeopardy!:

Written works

Books

Notable articles

Conover has obtainable over seventy articles.^[30] Several be blessed with received awards:

• "The Road Crack Very Unfair" (The New Yorker), an account of five weeks' travel with truck drivers unapproachable Kenya identified as likely carriers of HIV, was selected impervious to Tracy Kidder for Best Land Essays and included shaggy dog story Literary Journalism, ed.

  Sims vital Singer.^[30]

• "Hacking," his Wired Magazine item about a hatchet murderer who became a software entrepreneur make your mind up in prison, was reprinted shut in Minnesota Monthly as "Making dialect trig Killing" and won the Minnesota Press Association award for unsurpassed feature writing.^[30]
• "Cowboy Christmas" and "Learning the Ropes," both published gravel Travel + Leisure, won depiction Lowell Thomas travel writing stakes and were reprinted in Grand Tour: The Journal of Expeditions Writing, Winter, ^[30]
• "The Way classic All Flesh" (Harper's Magazine), star as six weeks spent working covert as a USDA red nourishment inspector, was finalist for high-mindedness National Magazine Award in Declaration in ^[30]

References

External links