Courtney Martin

Courtney E. Martin is a writer, teacher, and speaker, originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado--home of the Rocky Mountains, Fast Food Nation, and the New Life Church (oh Ted, what great Greek tragedy you make). Her book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body, was published to critical acclaim in April 2007 and will be released in paperback by Berkeley, Penguin, in September. It was also published in the UK and Norway--with a frighteningly ugly cover that includes both a Barbie and cotton candy pink. She is currently at work on a collaboration with Emmy-winning activist Marvelyn S. Brown, on her memoir called The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive, to be published by Amistad, HarperCollins shortly. Her essays have appeared in a whole boat load of anthologies (okay, maybe more like a wheel barrow), including A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox and Fifty Americans on Why Voting Matters. Courtney writes a column on politics and gender for The American Prospect Online and is the Book Editor of Feministing, the most widely-read feminist blog on the interweb. She also writes regulary for Crucial Minutiae, Alternet, Women's eNews, the Christian Science Monitor, and metro, among other national publications. She has spoken about feminism, body image, and youth and political culture at schools across the nation--from UNLV in titillating Vegas to Goshen, a Mnenonite college in Indiana. She also woke up really early once to be on The Today Show, said 'anal sex' on The O'Reilly Factor while debating scary lady Laura Ingraham, and was told she looked like she was 19-years-old by Neil himself (that ol' charmer) onThe Cavuto Show. Courtney has been honored with the the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, The Joan Cook Scholarship from the Journalism & Women's Symposium, The Setting the Message Straight Award from ChoiceUSA, A Books for a Better Life nomination, and a Clark Foundation Fellowship. Courtney is also a Woodhull Fellow and part of the first class of the Progressive Women's Voices project at the Women's Media Center. She has an M.A. from the Gallatin School at New York University in writing and social change (yes, this really exists) and a B.A. from Barnard College in political science and sociology. She spent six months studying in Cape Town, South Africa. Courtney is on the advisory boards of both Girls Write Now and The Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict. She also founded The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. When she isn't working, which is not nearly enough of the time, she is hanging out with her amazingly talented and kind writer's group, daydreaming about playing the blues harmonica, or watching The Wire with her brother and boyfriend in Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. Oh, or conspiring to create unselfconscious dance parties.