Ron Powers (born November 18, 1941) is an American journalist, novelist, and non-fiction writer. His works include No One Cares About Crazy People: My Family and the Heartbreak of Mental Illness in America; White Town Drowsing: Journeys to Hannibal; Dangerous Water: A Biography of the Boy Who Became Mark Twain, and Mark Twain: A Life, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. With James Bradley, he co-wrote the 2000 #1 New York Times Bestseller Flags of Our Fathers. The book won the Colby Award the following year. It was made into a movie in 2006, produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Clint Eastwood. With Ted Kennedy, he co-wrote his memoir, True Compass in 2009.
No One Cares About Crazy People was a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. The Washington Post named it a Notable Book of the Year, and People named it a Top Ten Book of the Year.
As TV and radio columnist for Chicago Sun-Times, Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1973 for his critical writing about television during 1972.[1][2] He was the first television critic to win the Pulitzer Prize.[3]
In 1985, Powers won an Emmy Award for his work on CBS News Sunday Morning.[3] In 1993 he completed a biography of Muppets creator Jim Henson that was scheduled to be published in October 1994, but after objections from the Henson family Random House declined to release it.[4]