Jeanne Marie Laskas has written for dozens of magazines, including Esquire, Life, Elle, Travel and Leisure, Health, Redbook, and Ladies’ Home Journal. Most of her current feature work appears in GQ.
Covering everything from Iraq to plastic surgery to coal miners, her award-winning stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, (including Best American Magazine Writing 2008, Best American Sportswriting 2000, 2002, and 2007). Her earliest essays and features are compiled in The Balloon Lady and Other People I Know (Duquesne, 1996).
"Inaugurate This!" | GQ | November 2008
Jimmy Kimmel does solemnly swear to faithfully execute the role of beloved late-night host (even if Jay Leno ends up taking his job at ABC) and will to the best of his ability preserve, protect, and defend his right to satirize, send up, and ridicule anybody (including all 742 members of his family, but not including his ex, Sarah Silverman) who gets in his way.
Read the full article. >
"Empire of Ice" | GQ | October 2008
On a $500 million man-made island in the frozen Arctic Ocean, just off the coast of a vast, uninhabitable tundra known as Alaska's North Slope, a pipeline begins. In temperatures that hover around forty-five degrees below zero, in perpetual darkness, a tight-knit band of roughnecks spends twelve hours a day, seven days a week, drilling down, down into the earth and pulling up precious crude. If you want to know how badly we need oil, here is your answer
Read the full article >
Listen to Jeanne Marie's interview with BBC's The Takeaway about her singular experience documenting the lives of North Slope oil workers. >
"This is Paradise" | GQ | May 2008
Two centuries of heedless gorging and historic wastefulness has left us with an intractable environmental problem: What do we do with our trash? More specifically, what do we do with the 250 million tons (that’s five pounds per person per day) of pizza boxes, beer bottles, shredded lettuce, old refrigerators, and half-eaten burritos that we throw away each year?
Read the full article. >
Download the Podcast with Jeanne Marie on the men behind Puente Hills, America's largest—and most life-affirming—landfill. >
"G-L-O-R-Y" | GQ | January 2008
Jeanne Marie enters the world of hot, peppy, and insanely underpaid NFL cheerleaders.
Read the full article. >
Hear the Cincinnati Ben-Gals speak for themselves in a special audio slideshow by Lauren Greenfield. >
"Underworld" | GQ | May 2007
Why do we even have coal mines? That question is what led Jeanne Marie Laskas to spend a few weeks 500 feet belowground, getting to know the men behind the invisible economy this country couldn¹t live without. "Underworld" was named a finalist for a 2007 National Magazine Award by the American Society of Magazine Editors in the Features category, which honors the stylishness and originality with which the author treats her subject.
Read the full article. >
Listen to Jeanne Marie's interview with NPR's Talk of the Nation. >
Go deeper into the mines in a GQ Audio Slideshow. Jeanne Marie Laskas talks about reporting on life as a coal miner. Photos by James Nachtwey. >
Read Jeanne Marie's mediabistro interview, "Hey How'd You Write That Ellie-Nominated Feature, Jeanne Marie Laskas?" >
"The Enlightened Man" | Esquire | September 2001
One of the best athletes in the NFL has never scored a touchdown or recorded a sack. Korey Stringer is six feet four inches, 340 pounds of supersized, liver-and-onions- eating, deep-thinking, dreadlocked delight.
Read the full article. >
Listen to Jeanne Marie's interview with NPR's All Things Considered on August 4, 2001, days after Korey Stringer died of heat exhaustion while training with his team, the Minnesota Vikings. >
"Why Men Hunt" | Esquire | August 2001
Because the woods are beautiful. Because it is a thing that brothers and sons do together for two weeks every year. Because you believe you are performing the work of nature. And because, well, have you ever tasted Joe's venison neck roast?
Read the full article. >
"Oh My God, We're Not Blond Anymore" | Esquire | July 1999
The transformation of Mary Bono.
Read the full article. >
"Bay" | Esquire | July 2001
Do you smell that? That's another Michael Bay movie burning up the box office. And if that bothers you, if you think he's just another schlockmeister with fancy cars and testosterone problems, all he can say is, shame on you.
Read the full article. >
"Vincent D'Onofrio" | Esquire | June 2003
. . . is the best actor on television (TRUE). . . . is now known as "the new Law & Order guy" (TRUE). . . . gets paid millions of dollars (FALSE). . . . is a total babe magnet (SO CLAIMS OUR WRITER). . . . is a star (HMMMM . . .)
Read the full article. >
"America is Bull" | Esquire | January 1999
And Billy is a cowboy who dreams of riding it into everlasting glory.
Read the full article. >
"Esquire's 70 Greatest Sentences" | Esquire | October 2003
Seventy lines that sparkle, invoke, provoke, or are just damn enjoyable to read.
Read the full article. >
"How to Tell a Story" | Esquire | November 2000
If you can tell a good story, nothing else much matters. Take Al, for example. He lives next door. He's about fifty. He's on my porch. He's here to collect money for some hay we bought from him.
Read the full article. >
|
