![Smarsh Sarah Aif2019](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/21642fd0-af31-444a-9766-84af79c3d7a3/Smarsh_Sarah_AIF2019.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=0%2C0%2C800%2C800&w=290)
Sarah Smarsh
Journalist; Author, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for The Guardian, The New York Times, and many other publications. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. A recent Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Smarsh is a frequent speaker and commentator on economic inequality.
Highlights
Previously
![Rural Mythticism: Fake News about Rural America](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null386d57bf-10cf-43d9-9603-1bfe6bc9bb31/48152530477_67cea81f09_h.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C16%2C1599%2C900&w=400)
Rural America has come to the nation’s attention. But much discussion in the media and coffee shops, at conferences and dinner tables, relies on incorrect or no data, largely...
![Revising the Narrative on Rural America](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nullf2ff2053-7fda-4c6b-a250-d35580935794/48138754408_4f50b70b98_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=225&q=80&rect=0%2C33%2C5408%2C3039&w=400)
Two authors of acclaimed but thoroughly different memoirs of growing up in rural American communities dive into their experiences growing up in the heartland, what they think...