Author and journalist Alan Weisman has worked in nearly 60 countries and on all seven continents. His 2013 book, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?, won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Paris Book Festival Prize, the Population Institute’s Global Media Award, and was a finalist for the Books for a Better Life Award and the Orion Book Award. The World Without Us, an international bestseller now in 35 languages, was named Best Nonfiction Book of 2007 by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, and one of The 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years by Slate in 2019. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rachel Carson Prize, the Orion Book Award, and winner of the National Library of China’s Wenjin Book Prize. His previous books include An Echo In My Blood; Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World; and La Frontera: The United States Border With Mexico. His work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, Mother Jones, Discover, Orion, VICE, Pacific Standard, Wilson Quarterly, Lapham’s Quarterly, Condé Nast Traveler, Boston Globe Magazine, on NPR, and in Best American Science Writing and Best Buddhist Writing (even though he isn’t one).
Weisman has taught journalism and writing at Prescott College, Williams College, the Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá), and from 2003-2013 was the Laureate Professor of Journalism at the University of Arizona. A senior documentary producer for Homelands Productions, he is currently under contract to Dutton/Penguin Random House for his next book, Hope Dies Last, about humanity’s realistic hopes in the challenging decades to come, and about visionary people around the world who are determined to try to get us through, despite daunting odds. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, sculptor Beckie Kravetz.