Kessler is the author of thirteen books, including Pacific Northwest Book Award winner “Dancing with Rose,” Oregon Book Award winner “Stubborn Twig” – chosen as the book for all of Oregon to read in honor of the state’s 2009 sesquicentennial – Washington Post bestseller “Clever Girl,” Los Angeles Times bestseller “The Happy Bottom Riding Club,” and her newest, to be published later this fall, “Raising the Barre: Big Dreams, False Starts and My Midlife Quest to Dance the Nutcracker” – all works of literary nonfiction. She is a “semi fearless immersion reporter” and self-designated guinea pig journalist who combines lively narrative with deep research to explore everything from the wild, wild west of the anti-aging movement to the stormy seas of the mother-daughter relationship. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Los Angeles Times Magazine, O Magazine, Salon, The Nation and elsewhere. She blogs at counterclockwisebook.com. She is also the author of “The Dissident Press,” a history of alternative journalism, and three textbooks. The director of The Writing Initiative at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, she also founded and directed graduate programs in Literary Journalism and in Multi-Media Narrative Journalism. Part reporter, part cultural anthropologist and part historian, she has a particular interest in American subcultures and in ill-behaved women who make history. She earned her M.S. from the University of Oregon in 1975, and her B.S.J. from Northwestern University in 1972.