Blair Braverman

Blair Braverman (born 1988) is an American adventurer, dogsled racer, author, and nonfiction writer, who has been called the "21st century feminist reincarnation of Jack London" by Publishers Weekly. As a journalist, she has written articles on gender and adventuring. She appeared in a segment of the radio program This American Life in 2015. Her debut memoir discussed sexism and violence in addition to recounting her adventures. In 2016, she was selected as one of the inaugural group of the Outdoor 30 Under 30 list by the Outdoor Industry Association.

Biography

Braverman was born in 1988 and grew up in the Central Valley region of California. When she was ten years old, she and her parents spent a year in Norway and Braverman attended the local schools. Returning to California, Braverman finished her schooling, completing a term as an exchange student in Lillehammer, Norway. As her classmates were preparing for college, she began applying to folk schools, a type of Scandinavian educational program which focuses on a particular trade for a year. She enrolled in a school teaching dog sledding and winter survival. After completing the course, she returned to the United States to attend university in 2007, enrolling at Colby College, from which she graduated in 2011. While in school, she published articles in both national and regional magazines and newspapers. She also spent two summers working as a dogsled guide on a glacier in Alaska. Braverman went on to further her education at the University of Iowa, earning a Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction.

In 2015, she was featured on This American Life on the "Game Face" episode segment entitled 200 Dog Night. She was selected as one of the inaugural class of the Outdoor 30 Under 30 list by the Outdoor Industry Association in 2016. In 2016, she published her first book, Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube, a memoir of her childhood and northern adventures, as well as an evaluation of the ways men and women cope with the harsh environment and each other. Her discussion of the perils involved, not just from blizzards, isolation and wild animals, but from the sexism and violence faced by women adventurers daring to enter the male-dominated field, earned reviews which set it apart from either travel narratives or other memoirs of self-discovery. Publishers Weekly dubbed her the "21st-century feminist reincarnation of Jack London" and the book was recommended by O, The Oprah Magazine as a summer must-read. She has also written other articles exploring gender, such as What I've Learned From Having A Trans Partner, which was published in BuzzFeed in 2016 and on-line harassment in When I was scared, my gun-owning neighbors helped me feel safe, published in The Guardian. Braverman's work has appeared in The Atavist, BuzzFeed, and the Smithsonian, among others. In addition to her writing, Braverman has run a kennel for a decade, trained for the 2018 Iditarod and lives with her partner, Quince Mountain, in Northern Wisconsin.. Braverman is currently competing in the 2019 Iditarod.