CALS Speaker Series presents McKay Coppins

Award-winning Journalist & Bestselling Author

McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he is a leading voice in the magazine's coverage of politics, religion, and national affairs.

A former visiting fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, Coppins has appeared in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list and is the recipient of the 2019 Aldo Beckman Award from the White House Correspondents’ Association for his profiles of figures in the Trump Administration, and the 2021 Wilbur Award for his Atlantic essay “The Most American Religion” on Mormonism.

His New York Times bestseller, Romney: A Reckoning, illuminates the life of one of America’s most fascinating political figures. Drawing from personal journals, emails, and exclusive interviews with Romney, his family, and his inner circle, Coppins unveils the enigmatic politician’s private thoughts as he wrestles with the choices he has made over his career.

The book traces Romney’s early life and rise through the ranks of a fast-transforming Republican Party and exposes how a trail of seemingly small compromises by political leaders has led to a crisis in democracy. Ultimately, Romney: A Reckoning is a redemptive story about a flawed politician who summoned his moral courage just as fear and divisiveness were overtaking American life. The book was named one of the best books of 2023 by the New Yorker and NPR. Coppins is also the author of The Wilderness, a 2015 book about the battle for the future of the Republican Party which was excerpted in the Washington Post and named one of the best nonfiction books of the year by Buzzfeed.

Coppins is an experienced public speaker whose areas of expertise include digital media, American culture, politics, religion, and narrative journalism. He has had notable appearances on shows such as Late Night with Seth Meyers, Amanpour & Company, CBS News, CNN, and MSNBC and he has hosted segments at The Atlantic Festival. In addition, he has been heard on NPR’s Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and On Point. He lives near Washington, D.C., with his wife and children.

This event is co-sponsered by the Political Animals Club of Little Rock.

This program honors John Netherland (J. N.) Heiskell, who served as editor of the Arkansas Gazette for more than seventy years. CALS Executive Director, Nate Coulter, will moderate.

A scoop-rich biography…An especially clear window onto the forces that over the last decade have transformed the GOP….Coppins gained extraordinary access…The tell-all tales gush forth.” (Los Angeles Times)

An astonishing, nearly unprecedented catalog of intraparty critique… it’s also, and maybe all the more importantly, a deft study of the capacity for rationalization…this is what makes this book so interesting, and also important.” (Politico)

A rare feat in modern-day political reporting: an account in which the subject engages in actual introspection. (New Yorker)

A memorable distillation of a life in politics, of the tension between high principle and unseemly justification. It’s a tension Romney has navigated better than most, in part for his willingness to acknowledge its existence.” (Carlos Lozada, New York Times)

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