Jo Ivester

Jo Ivester is the author of “The Outskirts of Hope: A Memoir of the 1960s Deep South.” She spent two years of her childhood living in a trailer in Mound Bayou, where she was the only white student at her junior high. She finished high school in Florida before attending Reed, MIT, and Stanford in preparation for a career in transportation and manufacturing. Following the birth of her fourth child, she began teaching, first as a substitute math teacher and then as an adjunct professor at St. Edward's University. She and her husband teach each January at MIT and travel extensively, splitting their time between Texas and Colorado.