About the Author

Cedric Jennings (left) and Ron Suskind (right) at the 2008 Baltimore Book Festival.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author Ron Suskind has written several important works of nonfiction that have framed national debates while exploring the complexities of the human experience. His first book, A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League (1995), is based on a series of articles written for the Wall Street Journal that earned Suskind the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1995.

He has since written two other best-selling works of nonfiction, The One Percent Doctrine (2006), a journey deep inside America's battles with violent terrorists, and The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O'Neill (2004), both critically acclaimed works.

Mr. Suskind currently writes for various national magazines, including Time Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and the Wall Street Journal, appears on network television, and spends summers as a distinguished visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Cornelia Kennedy Suskind, and their two sons, Walter and Owen.

About Cedric Jennings

Cedric Jennings was born in 1977 and raised in one of the most depressed and dangerous neighborhoods in Washington, D.C.'s southeast section. His father was a frequently absent and jailed drug addict, while his mother, Barbara Jennings, was a devoutly religious woman who quit her government job and went on welfare for several years to devote her time to raising Cedric.

With his mother's support and good grades in school, Cedric went on to complete a childhood dream and attended an Ivy League school. After graduating from Brown in 1999, Cedric received his Master of Education at Harvard University and a Master of Social Work in 2003 from the University of Michigan. Presently, he speaks at schools and universities across the country on issues in education and youth advocacy. He plans to eventually earn a doctorate degree and become a psychotherapist working with disadvantaged youth.