Jessica Bruder is a journalist who writes about social issues and subcultures. For her latest book, Nomadland, she spent months living in a camper van, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing and hit the road full time, enabling them to travel from job to job and carve out a place for themselves in a precarious economy. The project spanned three years and more than 15,000 miles of driving — from coast to coast and from Mexico to the Canadian border. Named a New York Times Notable Book and Editors’ Choice, Nomadland won the 2017 Discover Award and was a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the Helen Bernstein Book Award.

Nomadland has been adapted for a film of the same name featuring Frances McDormand and David Strathairn, directed by Chloé Zhao and distributed by Fox Searchlight. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, and the Golden Globe for Best Picture and Best Director.

Jessica has been teaching narrative storytelling at Columbia Journalism School and contributing to The New York Times for more than a decade. She has written for New York Magazine, WIRED, Harper's Magazine, The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The International Herald Tribune, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Nation, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Inc. Magazine, and O: The Oprah Magazine. Earlier in her career, she was a staff reporter at The Oregonian and The New York Observer.

Jessica is also the author of Burning Book and is currently writing about trust in the age of surveillance. She lives in Brooklyn with a dog named Max and more plants than you can shake a leafy stick at.