Grandma Gatewood's Walk (Montgomery)

Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Where—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—Arkansas Tech University
• Awards—Dart Award and Casey Medal (more below)
• Currently—lives in Tampa, Florida


Ben Montgomery is a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times and author of Grandma Gatewood's Walk.  Ben grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to be a farmer before he got into journalism at Arkansas Tech University, where he played defensive back for the football team, the Wonder Boys.

He worked for the Courier in Russellville, Ark., the Standard-Times in San Angelo, Texas, the Times Herald-Record in New York's Hudson River Valley and the Tampa Tribune before joining the Tampa Bay Times, Florida's biggest and best newspaper, in 2006.

He is also founder of the popular narrative journalism site, gangrey.com, and co-founder of the Auburn Chautauqua, a writers’ collective.

His stories have appeared in national magazines, such as Parade and Seventeen Magazine, and he has contributed to NPR’s Radiolab. He also contributed to the 2008-09 edition of Best Newspaper Writing.

Montgomery has taught narrative journalism at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and at universities and workshops across the country, including the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, the National Writers Workshop and the University of North Texas’ Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference.

He lives with his wife and three children in Tampa, Florida.

Awards
In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for a series called "For Their Own Good," about abuse at Florida's oldest reform school.

His work has been honored by the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, the Society for Features Journalism, the Florida Society of News Editors, the New York Newspaper Publisher’s Association and the Association of Food Journalists. One of his stories was republished in Cornbread Nation 6: Best of Southern Food Writing.  (Adapted from the author's Facebook page.)