Eliza Griswold
Eliza Griswold
Eliza Griswold is the author of six books of poetry and nonfiction, all published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Her book Circle of Hope is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Her book Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. Amity and Prosperity recounts the true story of how fracking shattered one Pennsylvania town and how one resident brought it to light. The LA Times Festival of Books named Amity and Prosperity a finalist in the Science/Technology category.
Her book The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam won the 2011 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize. Her translations of Afghan women’s folk poems, I Am the Beggar of the World, was awarded the 2015 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Furthermore, her original poetry won the 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Art and Letters in Rome.
Eliza Griswold navigates the intersection of religion, art, the environment, and news in her talks. She discusses the human impact and social costs of natural resource development. In addition, she returns to her roots of reporting on religion. Her speeches also discuss the relationship between religion and resources, examining how local conflicts go global.
Eliza Griswold has held fellowships from the New America Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Harvard University. She is the Ferris Professor and Director of the Program in Journalism at Princeton University. She writes for The New Yorker, and lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.
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A National Book Award Finalist
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, NPR, The Minnesota Star Tribune, and Publishers Weekly
“Glows on every page . . . nearly miraculous.” —The Boston Globe
“Marvelous.” —The New Yor...Read More
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A Pulitzer Prize winner’s intimate portrait of a church, its radical mission, and its riveting crisis.
“The revolution I wanted to be part of was in the church.”
Americans have been leaving their churches. Some drift away. Some stay home. And some have been searching for—and finding—more authentic ways to find and fo...Read More
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A darkly humorous collection of poems by the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of Wideawake Field and Amity and Prosperity
If Men, Then, Eliza Griswold’s second poetry collection, charts a radical spiritual journey through catastrophe. Griswold’s language is forthright and intimate as she steers betwe...Read More
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A riveting investigation of the jagged fault line between the Christian and Muslim worlds
The tenth parallel—the line of latitude seven hundred miles north of the equator—is a geographical and ideological front line where Christianity and Islam collide. More than half of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims live along the tenth parallel; s...Read More
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Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
In Amity and Prosperity, the prizewinning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold tells the story of the energy boom’s impact on a small town at the edge of Appalachia and one woman’s transformation from a struggling single parent to an unlikely activist.
Stac...Read More
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Amity and Prosperity: America’s Resource Curse
“Resource curse” describes the phenomenon where people who live on land richest in natural resources are the poorest. It’s typically used for developing nations, but it exists in the U.S., too. Using seven years’ worth of immersive journalism, research, and anecdotes from her newest book, Eliza Griswold discusses the human impact and social costs of natural resource development. Griswold touches on corporate greed, the disenfranchisement of rural Americans, and the neglect of environmental activists and the federal government, all of which have contributed to the disaster of fracking wreaked on Amity, PA and other towns.
Evangelical Girls and the #MeToo Movement
In her newest journalistic endeavor, Eliza Griswold returns to her roots of reporting on religion. Once again using immersive techniques, she talks about the unique reaction to the #MeToo reckoning of sexual harassment among young evangelical women.
Writing About Rural America
After spending seven years developing Amity and Prosperity in Appalachia, Eliza Griswold reflects on a post-Trump understanding of journalism. She discusses how best to write about rural America when unfamiliar with it, and how to better listen to the people journalists are writing about.
The Poetry Process
Eliza Griswold is an award-winning journalist, but she’s also an award-winning poet. Griswold talks about her current poems-in-progress and writing process, her high-culture-meets-low philosophy, and the intersection of her investigative reporting and her poetry.
The Tenth Parallel
Eliza Griswold explores the intersection of Islam and Christianity along The Tenth Parallel. She discusses the relationship between religion and resources, and examines how local conflicts go global. This lecture focuses on restoring religion to the discussion of world affairs.
Eliza Griswold’s Circle of Hope is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
“Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America wins Pulitzer Prize”
“How culture wars divided one small progressive church in Philadelphia”
“Eliza Griswold unpacks her new book, ‘Circle of Hope'”
“Jesus Freaks: On the Free Spirited Evangelicals of the 1970s and 80s”
“The Church Preached Love and Tolerance. Then Racial Politics Tore It Apart.”
“The Christian Case Against Trump”
“The Best Reviewed Books of the Week”
“The Commonweal Podcast: Ep. 135: When A Church Dies”
“What Churches Lose When They Fight like the World Fights”
“Eliza Griswold’s ‘Circle of Hope’ is a portrait of an American church riven by discord”
Circle of Hope is included in “10 books to add to your reading list in August”
“Shifting Culture: Episode 208: Eliza Griswold”
“Color Correction: Ep. 71 Circle of Hope (w/ Author Eliza Griswold)”
“The Leader’s Way: Ep. 28: Circle of Hope with Eliza Griswold”
“How Black Lives Matter Is Changing the Church”
“The Commonweal Podcast: Ep. 26: Reporting Religion”
If Men, Then reviewed by the Library Journal, calling them “palpable and provocative poems that can be appreciated by broad audience.”
The LA Times Festival of Books nominated Amity and Prosperity as one of the finalists for the Science/Technology category.
“The New Yorker: Poetry: Eliza Griswold discusses ‘First Person'”
“The Watcher: For Eliza Griswold, poetry and journalism are about paying attention”
“10 New Poetry Collections You Need to Read in 2020”
Vogue named If Men, Then as one of the highly anticipated books of 2020.
Publishers Weekly published a positive review of If Men, Then, calling it a “well-timed exploration of violence and language.”
If Men, Then, Eliza’s 2020 release, included in the New York Times‘ “New and Noteworthy Poetry Books.”
Eliza Griswold’s The Sixth Extinction included in Literary Hub’s Best 20 Works of Nonfiction list.
“What Happened When Fracking Came to Town”
The Philadelphia Inquirer interviews Eliza Griswold.
“Examining the consequences of fracking in Trump country with Eliza Griswold: podcast & transcript”
“The Beginning of the End of the World”
“The historical roots of the US rural-urban divide run deep”
“A Community Cracked Open by Fracking”
“The Resource Curse of Appalachia”
“The effect of the natural gas boom on Washington County family explored in ‘Amity and Prosperity’”
“How the energy boom shaped a small town in rural America”
Discover why Amity and Prosperity is a summer reads pick for the BBC, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Glamour, and The Chicago Tribune
Read Eliza’s essays and articles in The New Yorker.
“Everyone Is an Immigrant: Poetry and reportage in Lampedusa”
See Eliza’s profile on The Pulitzer Center’s website
“The 22 syllables that can get you killed”
“The 10th Parallel: Where Christianity And Islam Meet”
“Eliza Griswold on the Importance of Taking Risks”
Follow Eliza on Twitter.
“Eliza Griswold’s talk was dazzling and moving. Her investigative poetics represent a unique combination of journalistic eye and poetic voice that yields a crisp and captivating form of witness. The students, faculty, and locals were mesmerized by her tales of engagement with refugees and Pashtun women in Afghanistan, and her collections of landays that she translated into English.”
— Ewa Chruschiel Colby, Sawyer CollegePraise for Circle of Hope
A Los Angeles Times Must-Read“Inspiring . . . As the American church and American society remain divided, it’s very much worth reading Griswold’s book, examining our own hearts and asking ourselves a vital question: Are our differences so great that they justify destroying relationships or institutions that are truly good?”
— David French, The New York Times Book Review“Glows on every page . . . nearly miraculous.”
— Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe“The lessons Circle of Hope imparts—about community, social justice, American society and the ways in which we come to terms with history and progress—are relevant well beyond the confines of Christianity.”
— Roxanne Patel Shepelavy, The Philadelphia Citizen“An affecting study of sacred life in sacrilegious times. What brings people to church today? . . . Circle of Hope [brings] the dilemma alive.”
— Dan Piepenbring, Harper’s“Riveting . . . A fascinating inquest into the death of a church that doubles as a compassionate case study on the insufficiency of good intentions.”
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review“Circle of Hope is the intimate story of one small church, but it carries within it profoundly relevant lessons for all people of faith.”
— BookPage, Starred ReviewPraise for If Men, Then
“Griswold has taken the Whitmanesque ‘I’—’I’ as everyone—and made it unmistakably singular . . . Though the sequence nods to the surreal and the psychological—Rimbaud’s ‘Je est un autre’—there are also echoes of John Berryman and Sylvia Plath, poets closer to home whose self-awareness was enacted on the page in the form of characters, masks, new selves . . . wry and intimate, sophisticated and all [Griswold’s] own—imagining the adventure that is being.”
— The New Yorker“This second poetry collection from Griswold is profoundly of its moment (just look at the CBD oil references), but its language feels somehow eternal.”
— Vogue“[Griswold] writes poems so emotionally charged they seem on the verge of spilling over . . . palpable and provocative poems that can be appreciated by broad audience.”
— Library JournalPraise for Amity and Prosperity
“With empathy and diligence, Griswold brings attention to the emotional and financial tolls Haney and her family endured in this revealing portrait of rural America in dire straits.”
— Publishers Weekly“Veteran journalist Eliza Griswold’s… Amity and Prosperity is part Erin Brockovich, part Hillbilly Elegy. You’ll be inspired by [Stacey Haney, Beth Voyles and Kendra Smith] who called B.S. on what was happening around them, pointing a finger at both money-hungry businessmen and day-tripping liberals studying them like specimens. Their galvanizing activism is proof that, to help someone, first you have to listen.”
— Glamour“Griswold’s empathetic yet analytical account of Haney’s indefatigable role as advocate for justice is a thorough and thoroughly blood-pressure-raising account of the greed and fraud embedded in the environmentally ruinous natural-gas industry. As honest and unvarnished an account of the human cost of corporate corruption as one will find.”
— Booklist, Starred ReviewPraise for The Tenth Parallel
“Eliza Griswold’s talent runs through this book like a blinding light. Through her daring travel, quiet observation, empathy and gift for language, she humanizes and clarifies conflicts in Africa and Asia that are often neglected or misunderstood. The Tenth Parallel is both vitally important and beautifully written.”
— Steve Coll, author of The Bin Ladens“In this revolutionary work, Griswold has dedicated the last seven years of her life to traveling in the world’s least known places to explore the encounter between Christianity and Islam in Africa and Asia. She has brought back the unforgettable stories of Christians and Muslims along the tenth parallel whose faith is shaping the world’s future. Griswold’s courageous pilgrimage changes the way we think about Christianity and Islam by exploding any simplistic ‘clash’ narrative. She returns us to the most basic truth of human existence: that the world and its people are interconnected.”
— Archbishop Desmond TutuBook This Speaker
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