Amanda Ripley is an American journalist and author. She has covered high-profile topics for ''Time'' and other outlets, and she contributes to ''The Atlantic''. Her book ''The Smartest Kids in the World'' was a ''New York Times'' bestseller.

Biography

Amanda Ripley was born in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

and grew up in

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. She graduated

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1996 with a B.A. in government. After covering Capitol Hill for ''

Congressional Quarterly Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combined ...

'', Ripley learned to write long-form feature stories under editor David Carr at the ''

Washington City Paper The ''Washington City Paper'' is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. The ''City Paper'' is distributed on Thursdays; its average circulation in 2006 was 85,588. The paper's editorial mix is focu ...

''. She then spent a decade working for ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine from New York, Washington and Paris. She covered the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax investigation and

Hurricanes Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

and

Rita Rita may refer to: People * Rita (given name) * Rita (Indian singer) (born 1984) * Rita (Israeli singer) (born 1962) * Rita (Japanese singer) * Eliza Humphreys (1850–1938), wrote under the pseudonym Rita Places * Djarrit, also known as Rita, ...

, helping ''Time'' win two

National Magazine Awards The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

Ripley has written three investigative nonfiction books about human behavior, including ''The Smartest Kids in the World'', a ''New York Times'' bestseller. In 2018, she became certified in conflict mediation and began training journalists to cover polarizing conflict differently, in partnership with the

Solutions Journalism Network The Solutions Journalism Network (SJN) is an independent, non-profit organization that advocates an approach of solutions journalism, an evidence-based mode of reporting on the responses to social problems. It was founded in 2013 by David Bornste ...

. Ripley writes op-eds for ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' and feature articles for ''

Politico ''Politico'' (stylized in all caps), known originally as ''The Politico'', is an American, German-owned political journalism newspaper company based in Arlington County, Virginia, that covers politics and policy in the United States and intern ...

'' and ''The'' ''Atlantic'', where she is a contributing writer. She also hosts the "How To!" show for ''Slate''. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband. Her brother is the screenwriter Ben Ripley.

Works

Books

*2009. ''The Unthinkable: Who Survives when Disaster Strikes - and Why.'' New York : Arrow Books. , . *2014. ''The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way.'' New York, NY : Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. , . NYT Hardcover Nonfiction Bestseller, September 22, 2013. *2021. ''High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out.'' New York, NY : Simon & Schuster. , .

Selected articles

*2010
"What Makes a Great Teacher?"
''The Atlantic''. January/February issue. *2013
"The Case Against High School Sports."
''The Atlantic''. October issue. *2016
"How America Outlawed Adolescence."
''The Atlantic''. November issue. *2018
"Complicating the Narratives."
''The Whole Story''. *2019
"The Least Politically Prejudiced Place in America."
''The Atlantic''. *2020
"We've Created Cartoonish Narratives About People in the Opposite Party. They're Not True."
''The Washington Post''. *2022
"I stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or the product?"
''The Washington Post.''

References

External links

* * * *
How to survive a disaster
Robert Crampton. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

''. June 21, 2008.
Amanda Ripley articles in the ''Atlantic''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ripley, Amanda Living people Cornell University alumni Time (magazine) people American women journalists 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American journalists 21st-century American women writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women non-fiction writers The Atlantic (magazine) people Journalists from Arizona Journalists from New Jersey Year of birth missing (living people)