Jacki Lyden joined National Public Radio in 1979. She is heard frequently hosting Weekend All Things Considered, for which she has been the alternate host since 1994. In the last two years, she hosted the show 63 times. Lyden's 1997 memoir, about growing up with a bipolar mother, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba is considered a classic by the New York Time. Michiko Kakatani said the book " belonged on a shelf with "Angela’s Ashes," and "The Liars Club." Out in 11 languages (including Japanese and Romanian!) Lyden is at work on a sequel, about the war on memory. Called, "Vox Babylonia," it traces her mother's loss of memory and her attempts to simultaneous restore the memories of her mysterious Iraqi translator. Lyden journeyed to Iraq five times between 2003 and 2006, living with an Iraqi family in 2004, and got engaged there in '03. She has won the National Mental Health Foundation's Grand Prize for a story about the state of Montana's mental health system. She won the Gracie Award in 2002 with producer Davar Ardalan for best foreign documentary, "Loss And Its Aftermath," about the bereavement common to both Palestinian and Israeli families. Lyden was part of the NPR team which won the Dupont-Columbia for reporting in Afghanistan and Iraq. She was a finalist in 2009 with producer Zoe Chace for the Dart Award for Trauma Journalism on a story about Detroit's firefighters. In 1989, Lyden became NPR's London correspondent, where her coverage included a number of stories on the IRA in Northern Ireland. In the summer of 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and Lyden went immediately to Amman, Jordan, where she covered the Gulf War from there, Baghdad and many other Middle Eastern countries. Her work supported NPR's 1991 win of an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for Gulf War Coverage. Since that time, she has reported from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and other countries, and in 1995 did a groundbreaking series for NPR on Iran. As a host, Lyden has marched across Ireland playing Queen Maeve, and in 2007, brought the theater couple Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontaine back to life in a story on their home, 'Ten Chimneys.' Lyden was at home in Brooklyn on September 11, 2001, and was NPR's first reporter on the air from New York that day. She stayed on the story from Ground Zero. She shared in the organization's George Foster Peabody Award and Alfred I. duPont-Colulmbia University Award for coverage of 9/11. Jacki attended the University of Chicago as a Benton Fellow and is a Christ College graduate of Valparaiso University, which will award her an honorary doctor in 2010. A frequent public speaker, she has written for numerous publications, including Ecco Press's 2008 "50 on 50" -- 50 writers on 50 states. Lyden profiled Missouri! Her memoir has been adapted for the film "Daughter of the Queen of Sheba" starring Amy Adams and produced by WindDancer Films. "Amy is a like soul sister," says Lyden. "There's no one better to play the part of both a radio journalist and daughter." The film is set in Chicago and the Middle East. Lyden opened the NPR Chicago bureau with NPR's Scott Simon. She married Washington Post photographer Will O'leary in 2004 in Ireland. They live in the Washington D.C. area & Brooklyn, NY. |
