Author, "American Fire"

Monica Hesse

Monica Hesse is a newly named columnist for the Washington Post, writing about gender, feminism, the way we treat each other, and why we keep getting it wrong. She spent ten years as a feature writer for the Post, covering royal weddings, dog shows, political campaigns, Academy Awards ceremonies, White House state dinners, and some events that felt like a mixture of all of the above. Monica is the national bestselling author of the true crime love story American Fire and the Edgar Award-winning young adult historical mystery novel Girl in the Blue Coat, which has been translated into a dozen languages and was shortlisted for the American Booksellers Association’s Indies Choice Award. She has talked about these stories, and other things, on NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, FOX and NPR, and she has been a winner of the Society for Feature Journalism’s Narrative Storytelling award, and a finalist for a Livingston Award and a James Beard Award. Monica lives in Maryland with her husband and a brainiac dog.