ALAN PRENDERGAST is an award-winning journalist whose stories about the justice system, historic crimes, high-security prisons, and "death by misadventure" have appeared in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, including The Best American Crime Reporting and The Best American Sports Writing. He is the author of a book about the Richard Jahnke child abuse and parricide case, The Poison Tree (Open Road Media), and Gangbuster (Citadel Press), a narrative nonfiction account of the life and times of Philip Van Cise, the Denver district attorney who battled the Ku Klux Klan and widespread corruption in the 1920s. His latest book, Amateur Hour (Post Hill Press), recounts how mystery writer Erle Stanley Gardner came to Boulder, Colorado, in 1948 to help solve a real-life murder--with startling results. 

A longtime staff writer for the Denver newsweekly Westword, Prendergast has also written for Rolling Stone, Outside, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Men's Journal, Slate, 5280, and other regional and national publications. He served as consultant and reporter for a CBS News one-hour documentary about the Columbine shootings that aired on 60 Minutes and was nominated for an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism. His centenary account of the 1914 Ludlow Massacre won one of the country's most prestigious feature competitions, the Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award, and many of his  other works of archival reporting have received accolades as well.

A Denver native and graduate of Colorado College, Prendergast has a master's degree in journalism from Ohio State University, where he studied as a Kiplinger Fellow. He has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, the BBC and numerous other television, radio, and podcast programs to discuss his work.