In Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Jodi Kantor

New Canaan Library is pleased to present Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jodi Kantor in conversation with New York Times journalist Ron Lieber for a thought-provoking discussion about an essential question: how, in these challenging times, can anyone discover and begin their life’s work?

Jodi Kantor’s groundbreaking reporting has toppled media magnates, sparked reform worldwide, and foretold many of the unsettling changes we see in the workplace today. But before all of this, Kantor was kicked off her college newspaper. Society expects perfection, but Kantor knows those first professional steps are often rocky. She also knows that young people are facing new and frightening terrain, with political upheaval, skyrocketing costs of living, and the unknowns of AI.

Kantor casts aside platitudes and false hope to offer tangible help. Work is how we spend much of our time. It’s our engine of progress: how cancer therapies are invented, political campaigns won, thrilling art created and matched with an audience. Instead of letting cynicism take over, Kantor identifies two principles to help young people discover their life’s work: craft and need. By pairing the two, they can navigate tough, sensitive choices: how to think about money. How much risk to take on. When to buck what others are saying.

Powerful and provocative, How to Start is a statement of faith for young people as they make their way through uncertain times, offering wisdom, strategy, and a set of aspirations to launch their careers and last their whole lives.

Elm Street Books will be on site selling copies of How to Start. Jodi Kantor will sign books following the event.

Jodi Kantor is a New York Times investigative reporter who has revealed hidden truths about power, technology, gender, law, and employment. In 2017, she and Megan Twohey exposed Harvey Weinstein's treatment of women, setting off the worldwide # MeToo reckoning. They were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service and co-authored She Said, a book taking readers inside their investigation, also made into a film. Recently, she has been working to illuminate one of our most secretive and critical institutions, the Supreme Court. Kantor lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband Ron Lieber and their two children. She began her journalism career by dropping out of law school, and she speaks at campuses across the country about finding work of meaning.

Ron Lieber is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including The Price You Pay for College and The Opposite of Spoiled. He is the Your Money columnist for the New York Times and a three-time winner of the Gerald Loeb Award, business journalism’s highest honor. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, and their two daughters.