Sarah Smarsh Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, politics and public policy for the New York Times, the Guardian, the Nation, and many other publications. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was a short-list finalist for the National Book Award. Smarsh was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2018 and is a frequent speaker and commentator on economic inequality. Her new book, She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs, will be published in October 2020. She lives in Kansas.