Media and the Death of an Alabama Pastor with Mark Warren In-Person
Mark Warren, a September Writer-in-Residence at the Hemingway House with The Community Library, joins us for a conversation with author and journalist Kim Cross about his Pulitzer Prize-winning feature writing piece, "A Death in Alabama." The article is an eye-opening narrative about a big event in a small Alabama town: The death of Bubba Copeland, a Baptist pastor and local mayor who ended his life after his private life was exposed by a right-wing media site.
Mark will discuss the unexpected story behind the article, about earning trust as an outsider in a small town, about avoiding assumptions, and the power of telling stories in the wake of tragedy.
Registration requested to join us in person. To watch live online (no registration needed) visit: https://vimeo.com/event/6160123. A recording will be available to watch on The Community Library's Event Archive.
Registration closes 1 hour before the program. For most programs, we will have room for walk-ins to join us.
- Date:
- Monday, September 28, 2026
- Time:
- 5:00pm - 6:00pm
- Time Zone:
- Mountain Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- John A. and Carole O. Moran Lecture Hall
- Campus:
- The Community Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Lectures & Conversations
Mark Warren worked as an editor at Esquire Magazine for twenty-eight years, twenty of those years as Executive Editor, where he oversaw much of the award-winning narrative nonfiction literary journalism for the magazine. He then spent six years as Vice President and Executive Editor at Random House. During his decades in book and magazine publishing, he has covered Capitol Hill and the White House, and initiated enterprise reporting on race, poverty, geopolitics, technology, political extremism, domestic and international terrorism, gun violence, and the health-care system, among many other subjects. He coauthored Senator Harry Reid’s memoir “The Good Fight” when Reid was Senate Majority Leader, as well as Senator Jeff Flake’s book “Conscience of a Conservative,” which was published in 2017. Born and raised in rural southeast Texas, Warren now lives in Harlem with his wife, Jessica Weigmann, and is the father of two young adults, Zeke and Oona Warren-Weigmann.
Kim Cross is a freelance writer and author of narrative nonfiction. Her work has been recognized in “Best of” lists by the the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Sunday Longread, Longform, Apple News Audio, and Best American Sports Writing. She teaches feature writing for Harvard Extension School’s graduate journalism program and is a workshop instructor for the Larry McMurtry Literary Center in Archer City, Texas and the Sawtooth Writing Retreat in Ketchum, Idaho. Kim’s first book, What Stands in a Storm, won the Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize for Excellence in Writing and the American Society of Journalists and Authors nonfiction book award. A Barnes & Noble Discover pick, it was named one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2015 and was a finalist in the GoodReads Choice Awards. It has been selected for by two community-wide reading programs and is taught in high schools and colleges in at least five states. Her second book, The Stahl House, was excerpted in Vanity Fair and is sold at Case Study House #22 in Hollywood. Her third book, In Light of All Darkness, was a finalist for the Edgar Award in Fact Crime and featured in a 2-hour 20/20 documentary.