A member of the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame and staff writer for The Common Reader, SLM contributor Jeannette Cooperman has interviewed murderers, artists, polo players, brain surgeons, and heroin addicts…and she’s learned not to generalize. A staff writer at St. Louis Magazine for 12 years, she received the Writer of the Year award at the 2019 City & Regional Magazine Awards, and she was named to the 2017 FOLIO: 100 list of “the best and brightest” in the magazine industry nationwide. Cooperman spent a decade doing investigative reporting for Riverfront Times, where her work was recognized by the National Education Writers Association, the National Mental Health Association, the National Black Journalists Association, the National Gay and Lesbian Journalism Association, and the Society of Environmental Journalists. She holds degrees in philosophy and communication and a Ph.D. in American studies, and she has written five books—four of them dealing with history, literature, and social psychology, and one a murder mystery. She and her husband, a historian, live with Willie, an especially playful standard poodle, in a century-old farmhouse in Waterloo, Illinois. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.