Lauren Kessler is an award-winning author, (semi) fearless immersion reporter who combines lively narrative with deep research to explore everything from the seemingly romantic but oh-so-gritty world of ballet to the wild, wild west of the anti-aging movement, from the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship to the hidden world of Alzheimer’s sufferers.  She is the author of nine works of narrative nonfiction, including her latest, Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts and My Midlife Quest to Dance The Nutcracker. Her other work includes Counterclockwise: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging; My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, A Daughter, A Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence; Pacific Northwest Book Award winner Dancing with Rose, Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl and Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding Club.  She is also the author of Oregon Book Award winner Stubborn Twig, which was chosen as the book for all Oregon to read in honor of the state’s 2009 sesquicentennial.

Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, O magazine, salon.com, Utne Reader, The Nation, newsweek.com, Prevention, Ladies Home Journal and elsewhere. She blogs at www.laurenchronicles.com. Kessler is an international speaker and workshop leader and the creator of two graduate programs in narrative journalism at the University of Oregon. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.