Jake Halpern

Jake Halpern is a journalist, bestselling author, and the winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. His first book, Braving Home (2003), was a main selection for the Book of the Month Club by Bill Bryson. His nonfiction book on debt collectors, Bad Paper (2014), was excerpted as a cover story for the New York Times Magazine. It was chosen as an Amazon “Book of the Year” and was a New York Times best seller.  His acclaimed book on refugees, Welcome to the New World (2020), expanded his Pulitzer-winning series in the Times; it was selected as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times and The Guardian. Jake’s debut work of fiction, a young adult trilogy, Dormia (2009), has been hailed by the American Library Association’s Booklist as a worthy heir to the Harry Potter series.  His most recent young adult novel, A Tale of Plagues & Perfumes (2026), will be published in the spring.

As a journalist, Jake has written for The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, The New Republic, Slate, Smithsonian, Entertainment Weekly, Outside, New York Magazine, and other publications.  In the realm of radio, Jake is a contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered and This American Life.  Jake’s hour-long radio story, “Switched at Birth,” is on This American Life’s “short list” as one of its top shows of all time.  His podcast Deep Cover, which tells true stories of people living double lives, was named one of the Ten Best Podcasts of 2024 by The New York Times and reached #1 on the Apple Podcasts chart with its sixth season. In 2025, Jake was named to Variety’s list of “10 Storytellers to Watch,” the magazine’s annual showcase of creators—novelists, playwrights, podcasters, composers—who are, in their words, “helping define the future of storytelling.” 

Last, but not least, Jake teaches creative writing in the English Department at Yale University. 

updated September 2025