David Grann

David Grann has been called the “Master of Nonfiction” for his process of obsessive research — from tracing the footsteps of a lost explorer in the Amazon to documenting the systematic murder of the Osage Indians in one of the worst racial injustices in American history. With six of his works turned into major motion pictures, Entertainment Weekly has called Grann “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading.” In this customizable speech or masterclass, Grann uses the same storytelling abilities to take audiences behind-the-scenes and illuminate how his tales are constructed — from the initial creative spark and the intense investigative reporting to putting words on the page and the famous fact-checking system at the New Yorker. Grann also illustrates why, in an age in which the truth is under assault, reported stories are so essential to understanding who we are.

In this lecture, David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon, illuminates how the struggle for Native American rights extends from the first contact with whites to the present day with Standing Rock. Grann highlights the saga of the Osage Indians, who once controlled the central part of the country. After being driven onto a rocky, presumably worthless reservation in Oklahoma, they discovered oil under their land and became the wealthiest people per capita in the world. Then, in the 1920s, they began to be mysteriously murdered. Grann documents how one of the most sinister crimes in American history connects to Native Americans’ current fight to control their land and resources.

In this spellbinding lecture, investigative historian David Grann illuminates how long-buried histories can come to life. He draws on his years of researching Killers of the Flower Moon, which documented the erasure of one of the worst racial injustices in American history — the systematic murder of the Osage Indians in Oklahoma for their oil money during the early twentieth century. He also interweaves lessons from his latest masterful work, The Wager, about how the crew of an eighteenth-century naval warship became shipwrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia and gradually descended into a state of depravity. There were warring factions, mutiny, murders, and cannibalism, undercutting the myth of the British Empire. After several survivors returned to England, they were summoned to face a court-martial. They had to tell a convincing tale — or they could be hanged. As in The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon, Grann highlights how powerful forces often whitewash uncomfortable truths. Yet, from moldering documents and oral histories, these truths can still eventually emerge to tell a powerful story — and awaken our conscience.