Rebecca Skloot is an award winning science writer whose work has appeared in
The New York Times Magazine; O, The Oprah Magazine; Discover; and many other publications. She specializes in narrative science writing and has explored a wide range of topics, including goldfish surgery, tissue ownership rights, race and medicine, food politics, and packs of wild dogs in Manhattan. She has worked as a correspondent for WNYC’s
Radiolab and PBS’s Nova
ScienceNOW. She and her father,
Floyd Skloot, are co-editors of
The Best American Science Writing 2011
. You can read a selection of Rebecca Skloot's magazine writing on
the Articles page of this site.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
, Skloot's debut book, took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly became a
New York Times best-seller. She has been
featured on numerous television shows, including CBS Sunday Morning, The Colbert Report, Fox Business News, and others, and was named
One of Five Surprising Leaders of 2010 by the
Washington Post.
The Immortal Life was chosen as a best book of 2010 by more than 60 media outlets, including
Entertainment Weekly,
USA Today, O the Oprah Magazine, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio, People Magazine, New York Times, and
U.S. News and World Report; it was named
The Best Book of 2010 by Amazon.com and a Barnes and Noble
Discover Great New Writers Pick. It has won numerous awards, including the
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Nonfiction, the
Wellcome Trust Book Prize, and two
Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Nonfiction Book of the Year and Best Debut Author of the year. It has received
widespread critical acclaim, with reviews appearing in
The New Yorker, Washington Post, Science, and many others. Dwight Garner of the
New York Times said, "I put down Rebecca Skloot's first book, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I've read in a very long time …It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart.” See the
press page of this site for more reactions to the book.
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