Courtney E. Martin is a writer, teacher, and speaker, originally from Colorado Springs, Colorado--home of the Rocky Mountains, Fast Food Nation, and the New Life Church (oh Ted, what great Greek tragedy you make).

Her book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young Women, was published to critical acclaim in April 2007 and was recently released in paperback by Berkeley, Penguin. It was also published in the UK and Norway. She also co-authored The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive, the inspiring life story of Emmy-winning activist Marvelyn S. Brown.

Courtney is currently at work on a book about young people and social change, tentatively titled Do Greaters: The Kids These Days and How They're Changing the World.

Her essays have appeared in many anthologies including A 21st Century Ethical Toolbox and Fifty Americans on Why Voting Matters.

Courtney is a Senior Correspondent for The American Prospect and is the Book Editor of Feministing, a feminist blog with over 300,000 unique readers a month. She also writes regulary for Crucial Minutiae, Alternet, the Christian Science Monitor, and metro, among other national publications.

She is a frequent speaker on feminism, body image, and youth and political culture. In addition she has partnered with the Dove Self Esteem Fund to do workshops across the nation. Courtney has also been on The Today Show, Good Morning America, The O'Reilly Factor, Sirius Radio, and various NPR affiliates.

Courtney has been honored with the the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics, The Joan Cook Scholarship from the Journalism & Women's Symposium, The Setting the Message Straight Award from ChoiceUSA, A Books for a Better Life nomination, and a Clark Foundation Fellowship. Courtney is also a Woodhull Fellow and part of the first class of the Progressive Women's Voices project at the Women's Media Center.

She has an M.A. from the Gallatin School at New York University in writing and social change (yes, this really exists) and a B.A. from Barnard College in political science and sociology. She spent six months studying in Cape Town, South Africa.

Courtney is on the advisory boards of both Girls Write Now and The Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict. She also founded The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy.

When she isn't working, which is not nearly enough of the time, she is hanging out with her amazingly talented and kind writer's group, daydreaming about playing the blues harmonica, or watching The Wire with her brother and boyfriend in Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. Oh, or conspiring to create unselfconscious dance parties.