Author, Award-Winning Editor Tom Shroder
Tom Shroder has been an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor during a career that has stretched over more than 30 years.
As editor of The Washington Post Magazine from 2001 to 2009, he conceived and edited the story, Fatal Distraction. Written by award-winning journalist Gene Weingarten, the article probed the case of a toddler named Chase who died in a hot car after his father accidentally left him there in the summer of 2008. The story asks: “Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?” It was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.
He also edited and contributed to Pearls Before Breakfast, which was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Weingarten and Shroder persuaded world-famous violinist Joshua Bell to play classical music on his $3 million Stradivarius violin in the Washington Metro, ingognito, as a social experiment to see how commuters would react. Of the several thousand who streamed by during the 45 minute concert, a cultural treat that would have required $200 tickets under normal circumstances, only a handful even bothered to glance at him, much less stop and listen.
Shroder is also one of the foremost editors of humor in the country. He has edited humor columns by Weingarten, Dave Barry, and Tony Kornheiser. And, he conceived and launched the internationally syndicated comic strip, Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson. Along with Barry and Weingarten, Shroder created Tropic Hunt, which has become the Herald Hunt in Miami and the Post Hunt in Washington, a mass-participation puzzle annually attended by thousands.
And, Shroder is the author of three books:
- His most recent title is the critically acclaimed Fire on the Horizon: The Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster, singled out as the one book to read about the blowout among all the Gulf oil disaster books by the New York Review of books, and the LA Times, which said that it “marries a John McPhee feel for the technology to a Jon Krakauer sense of an adventure turned tragic.”
- His first book, Seeing the Light, was a biography of Everglades photographer Clyde Butcher. It featured black-and-white images of what Kirkus Reviews called a “primeval-looking landscape,” noting that “Clyde Butcher’s unusual life as chronicled by Tom Shroder and John Barry is nearly mythic in its sweep.”
- He is currently working on his fourth book, “Acid Test,” which is about a movement that was underground for years and has now come above ground to rehabilitate the use of psychedelic drugs for serious purposes as an aid in psychotherapy.
Born in New York City in 1954, Shroder is the son of a novelist and a builder, and the grandson of MacKinlay Kantor, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his civil war novel Andersonville.) He attended the University of Florida where he became editor of the 22,000-circulation student daily newspaper despite the fact that he was an anthropology major (an affront for which the university’s journalism faculty was slow to forgive him). After graduation in 1976, he wrote national award-winning features for the Fort Myers News Press, the Tallahassee Democrat, The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Miami Herald.
Old Souls: Compelling evidence from children who claim to remember previous lives based and Tom Shroder’s travels with past life researcher Ian Stevenson
All across the globe, small children spontaneously speak of previous lives, beg to be taken “home,” pine for mothers and husbands and mistresses from another life, and know things that there seems to be no normal way for them to know. From the moment these children can talk, they speak of people and events from the past — not vague stories of centuries ago, but details of specific, identifiable individuals who may have died just months, weeks, or even hours before the birth of the child in question.
For 40 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson traveled the world from Lebanon to India to suburban Virginia investigating and documenting more than two thousand of these past life memory cases. Shroder, the first journalist to have the privilege of accompanying Dr. Stevenson in his fieldwork, brought his essentially unknown work to worldwide attention.
In the book, Shroder follows Stevenson into the lives of children and families touched by this phenomenon, changing from skeptic to believer as he comes face-to-face with concrete evidence he cannot discount in this spellbinding and true story.
In this speech, Shroder discusses his research and findings. The conversation that ensues is always passionate and fascinating.
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Of Tom’s editing, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and Author Dave Barry says: “Tom Shroder is the best in the business – the rare editor who has the analytical skills to see what needs to be done, and the writing ability to show you, when necessary, exactly how to do it. He is especially good at finding the flaws in long, complex pieces, and getting writers to perform at the highest level they’re capable of. I’d trust him with anything I’ve written.”
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Tom Shroder is an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor for more than 30 years.
As editor of The Washington Post Magazine, he conceived and edited the story, Fatal Distraction. Written by award-winning journalist Gene Weingarten, the article probed the case where a toddler named Chase died in a hot car after his father accidentally left him there in the summer of 2008. The story asks: “Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?”
It was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Shroder also edited and contributed to Pearls Before Breakfast, which was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.
In addition to being an author and editor of narrative journalism, Shroder is one of the foremost editors of humor in the country. He has edited humor columns by Weingarten, Dave Barry, and Tony Kornheiser. And, he conceived and launched the internationally syndicated comic strip, “Cul de Sac,” by Richard Thompson.
Read More
All across the globe, small children spontaneously speak of previous lives, beg to be taken “home,” pine for mothers and husbands and mistresses from another life, and know things that there seems to be no normal way for them to know.
From the moment these children can talk, they speak of people and events from the past—not vague stories of centuries ago, but details of specific, identifiable individuals who may have died just months, weeks, or even hours before the birth of the child in question.
For 37 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson (pictured below) has traveled the world from Lebanon to suburban Virginia, investigating and documenting more than two thousand of these cases of past-life memory.
Tom Shroder is the only journalist who has had the privilege of accompanying Stevenson in his fieldwork. He followed Stevenson as he talked to dozens of children and families touched by this phenomenon.
Read More
All across the globe, small children spontaneously speak of previous lives, beg to be taken “home,” pine for mothers and husbands and mistresses from another life, and know things that there seems to be no normal way for them to know.
For 37 years, Dr. Ian Stevenson traveled the world from Lebanon to suburban Virginia, investigating and documenting more than two thousand of these cases of past-life memory.
Tom Shroder is the only journalist who has had the privilege of accompanying Stevenson in his fieldwork. He followed Stevenson as he talked to dozens of children and families touched by this phenomenon. What did he learn? And did the evidence convince this skeptical journalist of the existence of old souls?
You’ll learn about that, and more, in this podcast interview with journalist, author and one of the foremost editors of humor in the country.
Click here to download the podcast.
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