Ben Austen is a journalist from Chicago who writes about racial and economic justice and people who define the issues of our time. He is the author of Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change, which was named one of the best books of 2023 by the Washington Post. His book High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction and named a best book of the year by Booklist, Mother Jones and the public libraries of Chicago and St. Louis.
A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, Ben has taught in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Chicago since 2018. His feature stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, This American Life, GQ, Wired, The Sewanee Review, Chicago Magazine and many other publications.
He is the writer and host of the narrative podcasts The Parole Room, which won a George Polk Award in Journalism, and The Last Days of Cabrini-Green. He is also co-host (with Khalil Gibran Muhammad) of the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are….
