Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth-generation Kansas farm girl, the child of a carpenter and a teen mom. Through intimate family stories and deeply researched cultural analysis, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth reveals today’s socioeconomic divide.

In HEARTLAND, author Sarah Smarsh introduces readers to a compelling cast of characters from her own family—grandmothers who act as second mothers, farmers who work themselves to the bone, builders who can’t afford their own homes, children who move from school to school.

Sarah Smarsh is a Kansas-based journalist, author of Heartland, and a frequent speaker and commentator on economic inequality. She is host and executive producer of The Homecomers podcast.

Author and journalist, Sarah Smarsh, is available for TV, radio, print or podcast interviews. Explore her past media coverage and appearances.

Sarah Smarsh’s She Come By It Natural analyzes her appeal, retracing Parton’s long career as a singer, songwriter, actor, business mogul, and philanthropist, and offering an encomium to her “implicit” or “organic” feminism.

Now collected for the first time in one volume, the brilliant and provocative essays that established National Book Award finalist Sarah Smarsh as one of the most important commentators on socioeconomic class in America—featuring a previously …

A former writing professor, Sarah holds degrees in journalism and English from the University of Kansas, and a master of fine arts in nonfiction writing from Columbia University.

Learn more about books authored by Sarah Smarsh, a journalist who has published on socioeconomic class, politics and public policy.

Sarah Smarsh has spoken widely on socioeconomic class, rural issues, the news media and wealth inequality at professional conferences, community events, university lecture series, book festivals and more.

On Tour in 2024. Copyright © 2025, Sarah Smarsh. All Rights Reserved.