Ted Conover

Award-winning author of "Newjack" and "Coyotes"

Ted Conover's ten-month stint as an officer at Sing Sing prison, undertaken without the knowledge of authorities, earned his book “Newjack” a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a National Book Critics Circle Award. It was only the latest in a series of projects Conover has undertaken in order to shed light on important but little-known parts of the world–by immersing himself in them.

From prison to immigration, the experiences have in turn made Conover into a sought-after commentator and fascinating conversation-style speaker on current events. He wrote about the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay for The New York Times Magazine - and testified about it before the European Community in Brussels. When the Iraq prison abuse scandal broke, he wrote on the New York Times op-ed page about the special meaning of prisoner care during peace - and during war:

It is a heady thing to have prisoners at your mercy ... [and] therein lies the true test of the officer, the system, and indeed the nation: how will you treat those who are helpless before you?

His now-classic book “Coyotes” recounts a year of travel across the border in the company of Mexican migrants, and is  widely used in college discussions of immigration as well as a primer on living with people different from oneself. He is also the author of “Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America's Hoboes,” “Whiteout: Lost in Aspen” and the new “The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today,” a look at the power of roads to change us and the earth, told through six journeys down transformative byways.

Conover's participatory style of research is fascinating to read and easily accessible via his discussion-style presentation. Conover is an expert at creating conversational dialogues that are engaging, interesting, and relevant.