Jessica Bruder


Jessica Bruder is an American journalist who writes about subcultures and teaches narrative writing at Columbia Journalism School.

Early life

Bruder was born in Clifton, New Jersey. She graduated from Amherst College in 2000 and received a master's in journalism from Columbia University in 2005.

Work

Writing

Bruder has written for The New York Times since 2003. She also writes for WIRED, New York Magazine and Harper's Magazine. Her first book was . She also produced the film CamperForce, which was directed by Brett Story and executive produced by Laura Poitras for Field of Vision.
For her book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, she spent months living in a camper van named Halen, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing to hit the road full-time. The project spanned three years and more than 15,000 miles of driving, from coast to coast and from Mexico to the Canadian border. Named a New York Times 2017 Notable Book, Nomadland won the 2017 Barnes & Noble Discover Award and was a finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Prize and the Helen Bernstein Book Award.

Film

In February 2019, Fox Searchlight Pictures announced that her book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, had been optioned by Frances McDormand and Peter Spears for a film, also called Nomadland. David Strathairn, Linda May and Charlene Swankie joined McDormand in the cast of the film, with Chloé Zhao directing from a screenplay she wrote based on the book. Peter Spears, Mollye Asher, Dan Janvey and Zhao were announced as producers of the film, which Fox Searchlight Pictures planned to distribute