Jeanne Marie Laskas has spent her career helping Americans understand the lives of other Americans—coal miners, gun shop clerks, migrant workers, staffers in the White House mailroom. She is the host of Cement City, an Audacy Original podcast, named one of the “Best Podcasts of 2024” by The New York Times. In the 10-part audio documentary, Jeanne Marie lives in a dying town she’s never heard of—one which has a Smog Museum, a mayor named Piglet, and not a whole lot else.

She is also the author of eight books, including To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope, and The 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 and a trilogy of memoirs: Growing Girls, The Exact Same Moon, and Fifty Acres and a Poodle. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Best American Magazine Writing and Best American Sportswriting. Jeanne Marie serves as a Distinguished Professor of English and Founding Director of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh. She lives in Pittsburgh with her dogs Petunia and Puddles and Matt the cat.