Alex Kotlowitz is the author of the national bestseller There Are No Children Here , which the New York Public Library selected as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century. His second book, The Other Side of the River , was awarded the Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction. For his documentary film, The Interrupters , he received an Emmy and a Film Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary. Kotlowitz's work, which has appeared in The New York Times Magazine , The New Yorker , and on public radio's This American Life , has been honored with two Peabody awards, two duPont-Columbia University awards, and a George Polk Award. He is a writer in residence at Northwestern University. Kotlowitz lives with his wife, Maria Woltjen, and their two children, Mattie and Lucas, just outside of Chicago.