Jeanne Marie Laskas is the author of eight books, including To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope, and New York Times bestseller Concussion, the basis for the 2015 Golden Globe-nominated film. She is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, a correspondent at GQ, and a two-time National Magazine Award finalist in Feature Writing, most recently for “To Obama With Love, Hate, and Desperation,” the basis for the 2018 book. Her stories have also appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Esquire. Her other titles include Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work (Putnam, 2012) and a trilogy of memoirs: Growing Girls (Bantam Dell, 2006), The Exact Same Moon (Bantam Dell, 2003), and Fifty Acres and a Poodle (Bantam Dell, 2000). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Best American Magazine Writing 2008 and Best American Sportswriting 2000, 2002, 2008, 2010 and 2012. Her 2007 essay “Underworld” was also nominated for a National Magazine Award. Her earliest essays and features are compiled in The Balloon Lady and Other People I Know (Duquesne, 1996). Jeanne Marie serves as a Distinguished Professor of English and Founding Director of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh. She lives on a horse farm with her husband and two daughters.