Biography

Kotlowitz received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 and is an alumnus of the Ragdale Foundation

Ragdale

Ragdale is the summer retreat of Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw, located in Lake Forest, Illinois. It is also the home of the Ragdale Foundation...

. He currently lives with his family just outside Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 in the suburb of Oak Park

Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...

.

Writing

Kotlowitz is the author of There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America is a 1991 biography by Alex Kotlowitz that describes the experiences of two brothers growing up in Chicago's Henry Horner Homes...

, The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, and Never a City So Real, among other works. There Are No Children Here is the winner of the Carl Sandburg Award, a Christopher Award

Christopher Award

The Christopher Award is presented to the producers, directors, and writers of books, motion pictures and television specials that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit"...

, and the Helen B. Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. The New York Public Library selected this work as one of the 150 most important books of the century. Kotlowitz's journalism awards include the George Foster Peabody Award and the George Polk Award.

Kotlowitz has contributed to The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine

The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...

, The New Yorker

The New Yorker

The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...

, and Public Radio International

Public Radio International

Public Radio International is a Minneapolis-based American public radio organization, with locations in Boston, New York, London and Beijing. PRI's tagline is "Hear a different voice." PRI is a major public media content creator and also distributes programs from many sources...

’s This American Life

This American Life

This American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...

. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, The Atlantic and The New Republic

The New Republic

The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...

.

Film

Between 2008 and 2011 Kotlowitz worked with documentary

Documentary

A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

 production studio Kartemquin Films

Kartemquin Films

Kartemquin Films is a not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1966 by Gordon Quinn, Jerry Temaner and Stan Karter, three University of Chicago graduates who wanted to make documentary films guided by their principle of "Cinematic Social Inquiry." They were soon joined by Jerry Blumenthal...

 and Hoop Dreams

Hoop Dreams

Hoop Dreams is a 1994 documentary film directed by Steve James, with Kartemquin Films. It follows the story of two African-American high school students in Chicago and their dream of becoming professional basketball players....

 director Steve James

Steve James

Steve James may refer to:* Steve James , American actor* Steve James , Welsh contemporary Christian musician* Steve James , English cricketer and journalist* Steve James , English football player...

 as a producer

Film producer

A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 on the documentary The Interrupters

The Interrupters

The Interrupters is a 2011 documentary film, produced by Kartemquin Films, that tells the story of three violence interrupters who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once employed...

, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2011 to widespread critical acclaim. The project was inspired by Kotlowitz's 2008 New York Times Magazine article "Blocking the Transmission of Violence."

Academia

Kotlowitz is a writer-in-residence at Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 and has been a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

. Currently, he is a visiting English professor at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

. He also has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.