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Evan Wright, author of Hella Nation, our guest blogger the week of 4/6

Fri, 04/03/2009

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Evan Wright is our guest blogger during the week of April 6th. If you have any questions for Evan Wright, add a comment to any of his posts.

Here is more information about Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe, Wingnut's War Against the GAP, and Other Adventures with the Totally Lost Tribes of America.

From the award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author of Generation Kill, a reporter's immersion in outsider cultures-"His style owes more to Hunter S. Thompson than to any sort of political correctness" (Newsday).

From his work as a reporter at Hustler magazine, to his National Magazine Award-winning writing for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair, Evan Wright has always had an affinity for outsiders-what he calls "the lost tribes of America." The previously published pieces in this collection chart a deeply personal journey, beginning with his stark but sympathetic portrayals of sex workers in Porn Valley, through his raw portrait of a Hollywood überagent-turned-war documentarian and hero of America's far right. Along the way, Wright encounters runaway teens earning corporate dollars as skateboard pitchmen; radical anarchists plotting the overthrow of corporate America; and young American troops on the hunt for terrorists in the combat zones of the Middle East. His subjects are people for whom the American dream is either just out of grasp, or something they've chosen to reject altogether. Sometimes frightening, usually profane, and often darkly comic, Hella Nation is Evan Wright's meticulously observed tour of the jagged edges of all those other Americas hiding in plain sight amid the nation's malls and gated communities. The collection also includes an all-new, autobiographical introductory essay by the author.

About Evan Wright:

Evan Wright is the author of Generation Kill, now the basis of the HBO miniseries for which he served as co-writer.

Wright earned his degree in medieval and Renaissance studies from Vassar College, an education he soon put work at Hustler magazine, where he served as "Entertainment Editor." In the late 1990's he began writing feature articles for Rolling Stone.

At Rolling Stone Wright focused on youth subcultures, from radical environmentalists to skinheads to sorority girls. His work is characterized by immersion in his subjects' worlds, detailed reporting and dark humor.

After 9/ll he pitched his editor on the idea that since the US military was "basically another youth subculture," he ought to be writing about it. He has covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He is the recipient of two National Magazine Awards, one for reporting on the war in Iraq in Rolling Stone and the other for a profile published in Vanity Fair.

Generation Kill received numerous awards, including the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Los Angeles Times book award, a PEN USA literary prize and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation's award for "Best History of the Marine Corps."

He is currently at work on two books for Putnam:

Hella Nation, a collection of essays and reporting to be published in the Spring of 2009

The Seed, a reported memoir of brainwashing to be published in the Summer of 2010.

Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe, Wingnut's War Against the GAP, and Other Adventures with the Totally Lost Tribes of America
Evan Wright - Author