American · b. 1967
Rod Dreher is an American writer and editor, born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 1967 and raised in the small town of St. Francisville. After studying journalism at Louisiana State University he worked as a film critic and columnist for newspapers including the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News, and later became a senior editor at The American Conservative, where his blog drew a large readership. His books trace a path from cultural commentary to religious memoir and polemic: Crunchy Cons (2006) argued for a countercultural conservatism; The Little Way of Ruthie Leming (2013) told of his sister's death and his return home; How Dante Can Save Your Life (2015) described healing through the Divine Comedy. The Benedict Option (2017) made him one of the most debated religious writers in America, and Live Not by Lies (2020) drew on Soviet-bloc dissidents. Raised Methodist, he converted to Catholicism and later to Eastern Orthodoxy.