Deborah Fallows is an American writer and linguist. She is a fellow at the

New America Foundation New America, formerly the New America Foundation, is a think tank in the United States founded in 1999. It focuses on a range of public policy issues, including national security studies, technology, asset building, health, gender, energy, educa ...

, and was assistant dean in languages and linguistics at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

Early life and education

Fallows grew up in both

Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

and

Vermilion, Ohio Vermilion is a city in Erie and Lorain counties in the U.S. state of Ohio, on Lake Erie. The population was 10,659 at the 2020 census. Located about 35 miles west of Cleveland and 17 miles east of Sandusky, it is part of the Cleveland metropo ...

. She graduated with a B.A. from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and received a Ph.D. in

theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the n ...

from the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

Career

Fallows was the assistant dean of languages and linguistics at

. She chose to be a stay at home mother after the birth of her second son. Fallows wrote of her experiences in her first book, ''A Mother's Work'' (1985). From 2012 to 2017, Fallows and her husband,

James Fallows James Mackenzie Fallows (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist. He is a former national correspondent for ''The Atlantic.'' His work has also appeared in ''Slate'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The New York Review of Book ...

, flew their single-engine plane across America to visit small towns, which was the basis of their latest book, ''Our Towns'' (2018). The book was made into an

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

documentary film in 2021. Fallows and her husband started the Our Towns Civic Foundation in 2021.

Personal life

With

she has two sons and five grandchildren.

Selected works

* * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fallows, Deborah 21st-century American women writers American women non-fiction writers Harvard University alumni Living people People from Vermilion, Ohio University of Texas alumni Writers from Ohio Year of birth missing (living people) New America (organization) Georgetown University faculty Linguists from the United States Women linguists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century linguists 21st-century linguists