Jeanne Marie Laskas

Jeanne Marie Laskas – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Jeanne Marie Laskas: award-winning American journalist, non-fiction author, and professor. Explore her biography, signature works (Concussion, Hidden America), journalistic ethos, and memorable quotations.

Introduction

Jeanne Marie Laskas (born September 22, 1958) is an American journalist, non-fiction author, and academic. Concussion (2015), which was adapted into a major film starring Will Smith.

Laskas combines narrative depth, empathetic voices, and longform journalistic rigor. Her influence spans magazine writing, books, screen adaptations, and teaching.

Early Life and Background

Jeanne Marie Laskas was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 22, 1958.

Her upbringing — rooted in a region shaped by industry, community, and working lives — appears to have sensitized her to stories of labor, ordinary citizens, and hidden systems that support daily life.

Education & Career Beginnings

Laskas pursued academic and journalistic paths, though detailed records of her formal education remain less public. What is clear is that she developed into a deeply curious reporter and author over time, contributing to major national publications.

Early in her career, she wrote for magazines, columns, and features. She served as a contributing editor at Esquire, wrote a weekly syndicated column (“Significant Others”) for The Washington Post Magazine, and contributed to Reader’s Digest and Ladies’ Home Journal.

Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, and The Wall Street Journal.

Major Works & Achievements

Notable Books

• The Balloon Lady and Other People I Know (1996) — a collection of early essays and profiles.

• Fifty Acres and a Poodle: A Story of Love, Livestock, and Finding Myself on a Farm (2000) — memoir of relocating to a farm, with reflections on rural life, identity, and solitude.

• The Exact Same Moon: Fifty Acres and a Family (2003) — continuing reflections on family, home, and place.

• Growing Girls: The Mother of All Adventures (2006) — explorations of girlhood, parenting, and coming-of-age.

• Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, an Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work (2012) — profiles of ordinary Americans in overlooked occupations and regions.

• Concussion (2015) — based on her 2009 GQ article “Game Brain,” this nonfiction exposes the science, politics, and human cost of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football.

• To Obama: With Love, Joy, Anger, and Hope (2018) — a book built from letters sent to President Obama and the stories behind them.

Her books often grow from magazine features, expanding narrative arcs and layering voices and historical context.

Journalism & Awards

• Laskas has been a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and continues to write for GQ as a correspondent.

• Her piece “The Mailroom” was a finalist for feature writing at the 2018 National Magazine Awards.

• Her GQ article “Underworld” (about coal miners) was also a National Magazine Awards finalist (2008).

• Laskas holds the title of Distinguished Professor of English and is the Founding Director of the Center for Creativity at the University of Pittsburgh.

Adaptation & Multimedia

• Concussion was adapted into a 2015 major film, starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, with screenplay involvement by Laskas.

• In recent years, she has hosted and co-written the podcast series Cement City, which was named one of the New York Times’ “Best Podcasts of 2024.”

Themes & Approach

Giving Voice to the Marginalized

A throughline in Laskas’s work is illuminating lives that often go unnoticed: coal miners, farmworkers, rural families, pathologists working in obscurity. In Hidden America, for example, she frames these unsung workers as essential yet invisible to mainstream narratives.

In Concussion, she spotlights not star athletes but a doctor battling institutional resistance to uncover a medical truth that affects many.

Empathy, Narrative, and Immersion

Laskas’s journalists’ eye is matched with narrative depth: she builds scenes, uses character arcs, and embeds factual reporting within compelling structure. Her work often blends interviews, personal reflections, archival research, and contextual framing.

She is not detached in her storytelling: her voice often reflects wonder, frustration, moral tension, and connection to her subjects.

Place, Home & Identity

Several of her memoirs engage deeply with geography and self: moving to a farm, relationships to land, and reconciling urban roots with rural spaces. In Fifty Acres and a Poodle, part of the narrative is about discovering what home means and how solitude shapes internal life.

Personality & Philosophy

From her writings and interviews, Laskas seems to value:

• Curiosity & respect for every person’s story, no matter how ordinary or hidden

• Solitude & listening as creative space

• Persistence in investigating truths and giving them narrative weight

• Bridging journalism and narrative nonfiction — to make facts resonate emotionally

Her approach suggests that the moral responsibility of a writer lies in seeing what others ignore, and in telling those stories with dignity and care.

Famous Quotes of Jeanne Marie Laskas

Below are a few representative quotes:

• “Dreams are matters of the heart, things that pull you along as if they have hooked you someplace deep inside.”

• “You can make your life so much larger simply be acknowledging everyone else’s.”

• “Just because politicians, scientists, and business execs are raging about it, and newspaper headlines are screaming it, doesn’t mean the message sticks—or that people care. It takes more than that to change a culture.” (from Concussion)

• “The kind of place that probably all writers crave. The kind of place where the outside world is still and quiet … you get a chance to listen, to peer, to go inward.”

• “I think the call of the inward life starts here. Solitude helps you differentiate, define the borders of the self. Solitude helps you figure out where everybody else stops and you begins.”

These reflect her contemplative, empathetic, and observant nature.

Lessons from Jeanne Marie Laskas

1. See the overlooked
   Some of the most compelling stories lie not in the loud or famous, but in the quiet, the ordinary, the working lives behind society’s mechanisms.

2. Narrative matters
   Truth becomes more resonant when embedded in human stories—voices, conflict, character arcs, place—not just statistics.

3. Respect the subject
   Laskas treats her subjects with dignity, allowing them space to speak and refusing to render them as mere symbols.

4. Embrace vulnerability & solitude
   Many of her reflections arise in silence: moving to a farm, reflecting inward, listening. These spaces fuel meaningful work.

5. Bridge media forms
   Her trajectory shows how a writer can shift from magazines to books, to film, to podcasting—translating core narrative skills across media.

Conclusion

Jeanne Marie Laskas is a modern exemplar of narrative journalism and compassionate nonfiction. Her work bridges advocacy, empathy, and reportage. From Hidden America to Concussion and beyond, she invites readers to see what is often unseen—and to hear voices that deserve attention.

Her legacy lies not only in the stories she told, but in how she told them: with curiosity, heart, and rigorous care.