Jessica Bruder is a journalist who writes on subcultures, economic justice and social issues.

For her most recent book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century (W.W. Norton & Co.) she spent months living in a camper van, documenting itinerant Americans who gave up traditional housing and hit the road full time, enabling them to travel from job to job and carve out a place for themselves in a precarious economy. The project spanned three years and more than 15,000 miles of driving—from coast to coast and from Mexico to the Canadian border.

Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The Washington Post, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, and The Guardian. She teaches narrative writing at Columbia Journalism School and is the author, previously, of Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man.

Photo by Todd Gray