Candidate for Congress, Author of DOPESICK and PAPER GIRL, thrifting champ, compulsive note-taker, and miner of stories about outsiders & underdogs.
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Articles by Beth Macy
Beth Macy Campaigns in Winchester as Election Nears
Skip to stories Breaking •Northern California Football Programs Face Participation Crisis•California High School Football Team Vacates Four Wins•R&B Legend Freddie Jackson Dies•San Antonio High School Placed on Lockdown•Former SEC Coach Joe Hamilton Dies at 84•Northern California Football Programs Face Participation Crisis•California High School Football Team Vacates Four Wins•R&B Legend Freddie Jackson Dies•San Antonio High School Placed on Lockdown•Former SEC Coach Joe Hamilton Dies at 84...
Warner Campaigns for Macy in Virginia's 6th District
breezejmu.orgupdated 4m agofirst covered Sep 8, 12:15 AM ET Read the original ↗ Senator Mark Warner visited James Madison University to support Democrat Beth Macy's campaign for Virginia's 6th Congressional District, warning that democracy itself is at stake in the race. The campaign rhetoric emphasizes existential threats to democratic institutions, a common Democratic talking point in competitive elections.
The Best Memoirs: The 2026 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist
Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about this year’s NBCC autobiography shortlist. It’s a collection of deeply reflective books; grief figures highly. What were you looking for, would you say, when you were looking for the best new works of memoir? I was looking for diversity of approach to the category of memoir and autobiography.
The Best New Memoirs: The 2026 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist
Thank you for agreeing to talk to me about this year’s NBCC autobiography shortlist. It’s a collection of deeply reflective books; grief figures highly. What were you looking for, would you say, when you were looking for the best new works of memoir? I was looking for diversity of approach to the category of memoir and autobiography.
NBCC Announces Award Finalists
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NBCC Announces Award Longlists
The longlists for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards will be rolled out throughout this week. The six award categories are fiction, criticism, autobiography, biography, nonfiction, poetry, and the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. Finalists will be announced on January 20, 2026, and the winners will be named at an awards ceremony in New York City on March 26, 2026. The NBCC started rolling out its award longlists last year.
NBCC Announces Award Longlists
The longlists for the 2025 National Book Critics Circle Awards will be rolled out throughout this week. The six award categories are fiction, criticism, autobiography, biography, nonfiction, poetry, and the Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize. Finalists will be announced on January 20, 2026, and the winners will be named at an awards ceremony in New York City on March 26, 2026. The NBCC started rolling out its award longlists last year.
Welcome to the Worst-Kept Secret
Editor’s note (OK, writer’s note): Last night I announced my candidacy for Congress at the storied Fire Station No. 1 in Roanoke, a hallowed space where Obama and FDR once spoke. To tee me up, my minister friend Dr. Rev. Bill Lee spoke, as did the rousing Dr. Brenda Hale, Mayor Joe Cobb, health-care hero Cheri Hartman, that red-to-blue seat-flipping Delegate-elect Lily Franklin, and the inimitable Shenandoah factory worker/farmer Andrew Tait.
Bestselling author Beth Macy hints at bid for Virginia's 6th Congressional District Original
ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) — Roanoke-based author Beth Macy, who wrote the New York Times bestseller, ‘Dopesick,’ may be poised to enter the race for Virginia’s 6th Congressional District. “She would have not only the benefit of name recognition, but she would have the added bonus of being able to be a strong fundraiser, which is what it’s going to take to be competitive in these districts,” said Virginia Tech professor and director of graduate studies in the school of communications, Cayce Myers.
WATCH: She wrote “Dopesick." Now she’s running for Congress
Today, The Roanoke Timesbroke a story: Beth Macy, an acclaimed journalist and the author of Dopesick, is running for Congress. As it happens, we were talking to her…today! Macy has written a brand-new memoir, Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America, an account of her attempts to bridge the growing divide in America and reconnect with estranged friends, family, and neighbors in her hometown of Urbana, Ohio, transformed since she moved away by MAGA and opioids and more.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
For years, Beth Macy has chronicled the evils tarnishing and annihilating the fabric of our American society: addiction in DOPESICK and RAISING LAZARUS, offshoring in FACTORY MAN, and much more in her career as a journalist. In PAPER GIRL, she turns her analytical, compassionate gaze on her most personal subject yet: herself. Macy dovetails her upbringing with the much more modern story of her hometown of Urbana, Ohio.
6 New Books We Love This Week Original
Editors’ choice Reading recommendations from critics and editors at The New York Times. Oct. 9, 2025, 2:48 p.m. ET Every week, critics and editors at The New York Times Book Review pick the most interesting and notable new releases, from literary fiction and serious nonfiction to thrillers, romance novels, mysteries and everything in between. You can save the books you’re most excited to read on a personal reading list, and find even more recommendations from our book experts.
What Happened to Ohio?
There was a time when nearly every airplane made in America used lights manufactured in Urbana, Ohio, my hometown. When the economy was good, my mom soldered those lights at Grimes Manufacturing, founded in 1933 by a high-school dropout who ended up inventing the airplane-light navigation system still in use to this day. By the time I was growing up, in the ’70s, everyone called him Old Man Grimes because he basically ran the town, serving as its largest employer and, for some years, its mayor.
How the Collapse of Local Journalism Led to the Erosion of Community Trust
My family had once been proud of me.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
From one of our most acclaimed chroniclers of the forces eroding America’s social fabric, her most personal and powerful work: a reckoning with the changes that have rocked her own beloved small Ohio hometown. Urbana, Ohio, was not a utopia when Beth Macy grew up there in the '70s and '80s --- certainly not for her family. Her dad was known as the town drunk, which hurt, as did their poverty.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America|Hardcover
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America "There couldn’t be a timelier book . . . searingly poignant, essential . . . Macy follows closely in the footsteps of . . .
Opinion | Why Can’t Another Working-Class Kid Make Their Way Out of Ohio?
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load. Guest Essay Oct. 2, 2025 CreditCredit...Hiya Singh Listen to this article · 6:23 min Learn more By Beth Macy Ms. Macy is the author of “Dopesick” and the forthcoming “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America.” She wrote from Urbana, Ohio.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
. Oct. 2025. 368p. ISBN 9780593656730. $32. MEMOIR COPY ISBN Growing up in Urbana, OH, in the 1970s wasn’t utopian, but Macy ( Raising Lazarus) got a good education and a valuable support network out of the Rust Belt town, a stepping stone to a career in journalism.
Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America
Journalist and Dopesick author Macy poignantly interweaves her personal history with that of her decaying hometown in this perceptive account. Raised in blue-collar Urbana, Ohio, which teemed with factory jobs and good schools in the 1970s and ’80s, Macy survived poverty and an alcoholic father with the help of the public library, family friends, and a job delivering newspapers that helped her pay for college.
PAPER GIRL | Kirkus Reviews
By practicing the basic journalistic acts of listening and observing, Macy continues her noble work as a truth teller. A small-town success story returns to her Ohio home to take account of profound changes. “It’s not as if Urbana had ever been utopia for me. I was among the poorest kids in my class, and I felt it.” Macy, the author of Dopesick and other bestsellers, made her way out of poverty in the 1980s through a college degree funded by grants that largely no longer exist.
The best true crime books of all time
18/03/2026 4 minute to read Love a true crime podcast? Or perhaps you're a fan of a Netflix exposé? Discover our edit of the very best true crime books. 18/03/2026 4 minute to read It’s now a widespread cultural phenomenon, but the true crime genre started on the page. Truman Capote’s acclaimed In Cold Blood, published in 1966, is thought by many to be the original true crime book, while TV series Making a Murderer and White House Farm were both books before making their way to our screens.
New & Noteworthy // 03.23.2025
Happy Sunday! I hope you are having a nice weekend. Itt is hard to believe that it is already the end of March?! As always, I am back with this week’s edition of New & Noteworthy, a column where I highlight some recent favorite items, from beauty products to decor finds, and share about some great sales and new arrivals.
Factory Man By Beth Macy
Factory Man by Beth Macy is an extraordinary work of nonfiction that tells the compelling and timely story of John Bassett III (JBIII) and his fight to keep American furniture manufacturing alive in the face of overwhelming global competition. Macy expertly intertwines the personal, economic, and cultural impacts of globalization through the lens of the Bassett Furniture Company, one of the largest furniture manufacturers in the United States.
Finding Tess By Beth Macy
In Finding Tess, Beth Macy once again demonstrates her profound ability to explore the depths of America’s opioid crisis, bringing empathy and journalistic rigor to a heartbreaking narrative. In this audio documentary, Macy revisits the life of Tess Henry, a young mother from Virginia whose opioid use disorder ended in tragedy when she was found murdered in Las Vegas. Tess’s story, initially touched on in Macy’s Dopesick, becomes the central focus here, unraveling in gut-wrenching detail.
I Grew Up Much Like JD Vance. How Did We End Up So Different? Original
I hail from western Ohio, not far from JD Vance's hometown, Middletown. Like him, I grew up in a family marred by addiction, with a grandmother who was also my rock.
An Anthology with Tips for Finding, Reporting, and Writing Nonfiction Narratives
An Anthology with Tips for Finding, Reporting, and Writing Nonfiction Narratives Part anthology and part craft guide, this collection of pieces from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist offers something for readers and writers alike. Lane DeGregory loves true stories, intimate details, and big ideas. In her three-decade career as a journalist, she has published more than 3,000 stories and won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.
Sam Rivera: The 100 Most Influential People of 2023
In 2021, roughly 108,000 Americans died of drug overdoses. And yet only a slim fraction—roughly 11%—of people with opioid use disorder (OUD) managed to access evidence-based care in 2020. If we were being graded, that’s an F. Sam Rivera has pioneered an approach to help, rather than abandon or simply jail—as we usually do—an estimated 7 million Americans with OUD.
COMMUNITY CALENDAR
Friday, March 3 Gloria Theatre: Jesus Revolution, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 4 Gloria Theatre: Jesus Revolution, 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 5 Woodstock Lions Pancake/Sausage Day: 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Lions Clubhouse, 2335 N. St. Rt. 559 Woodstock Gloria Theatre: Jesus Revolution, 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 7 Finance Committee of the Mechanicsburg Public Library: will meet at 5:30 p.m. at the library.
Local events and activities on tap
Saturday, February 25 Red Cross Blood Drive: 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., Champaign Family YMCA, 191 Community Dr., Urbana State Route 4 railroad crossing repair: S.R. 4 will be closed on from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the railroad crossing between Neer and Hawk Roads. Crews will be repairing the railroad crossing.
Even a Mother Can’t Body-Block Mental Illness
Book Review|Even a Mother Can’t Body-Block Mental Illness https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/books/review/zig-zag-boy-tanya-frank.html ZIG-ZAG BOY: A Memoir of Madness and Motherhood, by Tanya Frank When Tanya Frank’s otherwise healthy 19-year-old son, Zach, experienced his first psychotic break in 2009, he thought his friends had become members of the Russian Mafia, that his cellphone was bugged, and that his college was a network set up to spy on him, along with the whirring helicopters...
Upcoming events, weekend attractions …
Saturday, February 18 Gloria Theatre: A Man Called Otto (PG-13), 4:30 and 7:30 p.m. Mechanicsburg Safety Committee meeting: 9 a.m. at the Municipal Building Sunday, February 19 Gloria Theatre: A Man Called Otto (PG-13), 2:30 and 5:30 p.m. Monday, February 20 Champaign Family YMCA free blood pressure and blood sugar screenings, performed by The Medicine Shoppe, 9-11 a.m. Community members welcome DAR meeting: 1:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church to present the annual American History Essay...
The best books on America's opioid crisis
Much has been written about America’s opioid crisis, and while many of these books are thoughtful and engrossing, it’s tough to know where to begin if you’re interested in learning more. Here I’ve compiled the four books I consider must reads on this subject. Each of them centers on something a bit different, covering a range of areas from the history of the drug crisis to personal accounts of the ravages wrought by opioids. I hope you’ll find something in here that resonates.
RAISING LAZARUS by Beth Macy Read by Beth Macy | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine
Few works bring home the realities, the sadness, and the politics of the opioid crisis as well as this audiobook. Narrated with conviction by author Beth Macy, this firsthand account presents the victims and the unsung heroes who fight valiantly to help them and to bring about meaningful change in a system created for profit, not health.
Tenemos una manera de acabar con la epidemia de opioides, pero no la voluntad
Beth Macy es la autora de 'Dopesick' y, más recientemente, 'Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis'. En 2020, durante una charla que estaba dando sobre la epidemia de los opioides en la Asociación de Comisarios de Indiana, supe que la cosa no iba bien.
We have a way to end the opioid epidemic, but not the will
Beth Macy is the author of "Dopesick" and, most recently, "Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis." I knew when I was giving a talk about the opioid epidemic to the Indiana Sheriffs' Association in 2020 that it wasn't going well. When I suggested that law enforcement officers divert arrestees with substance use disorders to treatment centers instead of jail, the sheriffs looked more disgusted than interested.
Beth Macy Gardens Her Way Home
Okay, so it turns out that Mom was right about my cycling prowess. Soon after the fall, I gave up mountain biking for smoother, safer greenway riding, entering the long and awkward transition between spring chicken and geriatric fowl. The next year I nailed the long-coveted fellowship, a stepping-stone to a new career in which I came to work for the toughest boss of all (gulp): myself.
Local Leaders Weigh In On Opioid Crisis - Lincoln Herald
America’s opioid crisis is out of control. Among those addressing the crisis is journalist Beth Macy, who will speak about this and her new anti-drug book, Raising Lazarus, Sept. 22, 9-10 a.m., in the Myers Center Auditorium of the Gaston College Dallas Campus (see related coverage here in The Herald). Relatedly, local leaders recently weighed in about this nationwide problem.
Register For Free Event On The Opioid Crisis - Lincoln Herald
Journalist Beth Macy will speak Sept. 22, 9-10 a.m., at the Gaston College Dallas Campus. The place to be for this free event is the campus’s Myers Center Auditorium, according to the college’s marketing department. After her talk, Macy will sign copies of her book, Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis.
Author Beth Macy at Gaston College Sept. 22nd - Lincoln Herald
Overdose is one of the serious consequences of drug use.Gaston Together, the Gaston Controlled Substances Coalition, and Olive Branch Ministry will welcome author Beth Macy to Gaston College for an in-person conversation and book signing on her new book, "Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis." The event will be held in the Myers Auditorium at the school. It will be free and open to the public with registration.
The 'good criminals' who help treat opioid addicts
In her 2018 bestseller, " Dopesick," Beth Macy presented a staggering picture of the opioid catastrophe that continues to upend lives and communities across America. In " Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis," she is back with a portrait of the compassionate and practical people who have stepped in to help stem the tens of thousands of drug deaths that still destroy families every year.
Review: 'Raising Lazarus,' by Beth Macy
When you think about it, a lot of good narrative journalism is sought by readers already sharing the writer's views and wishing to understand more. A genre that might be slighted as "preaching to the choir" is potent for readers seeking to organize their thinking and contribute to solving social problems. Recent titles include "Caste" (Isabel Wilkerson on racism), "The Sixth Extinction" (Elizabeth Kolbert on global warming) and "Surviving Autocracy" (Masha Gessen on authoritarian government).
The Books That Help Beth Macy Find Threads of Hope While Writing About Trauma
When my third book, Dopesick, came out in 2018, I found myself in the place of promoting a book at the same time I was grieving the recent murder of 28-year-old Tess Henry, a main protagonist of that book. I’d been following her story for more than two years when her mom phoned to say that her battered body had been discovered at the bottom of a dumpster on Christmas Eve.
‘Where the soul meets the bone’: Why ‘Dopesick’s’ Beth Macy stays on the opioid beat
On the Shelf Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis By Beth Macy Little, Brown: 400 pages, $30 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. When Beth Macy finished her 2018 book, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America,” she was done with the subject. “There was no way I could do another book on opioids. I felt emotionally battered.
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis
FORMAT Hardcover$30.00$27.90(English) Buy new or used from an indie through our partner Biblio: Price Condition Seller Description A "deeply reported, deeply moving" (Patrick Radden Keefe) account of everyday heroes fighting on the front lines of the overdose crisis, from the New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick (inspiration for the Peabody Award-winning Hulu limited series) and Factory Man.
Harm Reduction Is What Successful Addiction Care Looks Like - The New York Times
HICKORY, N.C. — On a chilly spring evening in 2021, Tim Nolan set up a portable addiction clinic next to a McDonald’s dumpster, and he waited. His desk was the dashboard of his gray Prius, his office this parking lot, which smelled like frying oil and trash. The hatchback of the nurse practitioner’s car was full of hepatitis C testing kits, clean needles, fentanyl test strips — and pizzas.
The Author of ‘Dopesick’ Returns to Familiar Ground
RAISING LAZARUS: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis, by Beth Macy “Dopesick,” Beth Macy’s deeply reported account of how opioids came to savage so many Appalachian families, concludes with a wrenching image of Patricia Mehrmann tenderly preparing her 28-year-old daughter, Tess Henry, for burial.
Review: 'Dopesick' follow-up goes to front lines of those helping the addicted
Beth Macy’s “Dopesick” made waves in the world of opioid addiction, drawing a wide readership’s attention to the role of the Sackler family and their Purdue Pharma company in pushing and overprescribing the highly addictive painkiller Oxycontin. Last year “Dopesick” became a superb limited series on the streaming service Hulu; Macy was a writer and producer on the show, which picked up 14 Emmy nominations. But the overdose epidemic continues, and Macy isn’t finished.
I Caught Two Men Stealing From My Home. The Aftermath Was Absurd—and All Too Typical.
Politics This experience crystallized Oregon’s deeper problems. Typically, guys wearing power-company vests don’t leave the houses they’re working on laden down with backpacks—let alone power tools, a scooter, and a Nintendo Switch. But that was the scene I happened upon at 6:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in mid-April when I puttered into my driveway in Eugene, Oregon, my 7-year-old ensconced in the back seat.
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America's Overdose Crisis|Hardcover
"Macy brings her empathetic reporter's craft to the oft-ignored problem solvers on the groundthose who, as Macy writes, didn't wait around for justice. Macy didn't either. Unlike so many laws, court decisions and news stories, Raising Lazarus does right by the victims of the opioid crisis."—Sarah Smarsh, New York Times bestselling author of Heartland "Raising Lazarus confirms Beth Macy’s status as America's nonfiction laureate of the opioid crisis.
Addiction stories from Beth Macy, author of the book Dopesick, the basis of a series on Hulu. on Apple Podcasts
Beth Macy has been writing about addiction for decades, but her work got more attention than ever when she covered heroin addiction in a wealthy suburb of Virginia. Moved by the stories of people addicted to opioids, she wrote a bestseller about America’s opioid epidemic called Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America. The book has been adapted into a series for Hulu starring Michael Keaton.
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