About the Author: Lauren Redniss
One look at this year’s Go Big Read book will have you wondering more about its innovative author. Lauren Redniss’ Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Radioactive, demonstrates not only her writing skills, but her artistic talent as well. Art was always a part of Lauren’s life with her mother being a dancer, leading her to study dance. She also was very interested in painting, especially because a mother of a childhood friend was a painter. In addition, her grandfather had a grocery store where Lauren helped out behind the counter and when there weren’t many customers, she would explore her creativity. She made “jewelry for the customers out of rubber bands and garbage bag twist ties, or she would draw on the backs of cigarette cartons with a sharpie.”
Along with Radioactive, Lauren is the author of Century Girl: 100 years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis and Last Living Star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Her writing and drawings have been in many publications, such as the New York Times. She currently is a professor at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her other accomplishments include:
-2008-2009: Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers at the New York Public Library
-2010: New York Institute for the Humanities Fellow
-2011: A Finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for non-fiction for Radioactive
-2012: Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History
**Don’t miss out on the chance to see Lauren Redniss speak at our annual Go Big Read author event on October 15 at 7:00pm in Union South’s Varsity Hall.
Jessica Waala
Undergraduate Student