Adrian Nicole LeBlanc

Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2016) is the author of the highly acclaimed “Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx.”

The result of a decade spent with members of one extended family, “Random Family” enabled readers to inhabit the daily experiences of a community in an impoverished Bronx neighborhood, revealing its inner workings and creating an intimate chronicle of urban poverty. The New York Times called it “a classic unflinching documentary” and named it one of the year’s Top Ten Books. LeBlanc subsequently received a MacArthur “genius” Grant.

LeBlanc is known among fellow reporters and writers for her deep research and her devotion to the subjects of her work. “This is a painstaking feat of reporting and of empathy,” the critic Margaret Talbot wrote of “Random Family.”

LeBlanc will come to Carey to complete a book on stand-up comedy. This is not a seismic shift:  she is interested in improvisational survival strategies.  LeBlanc has written for The New Yorker and New York Times magazine about the late comedians Robin Williams and George Carlin—comics who turned their keen awareness and pain into cosmic jokes. LeBlanc’s previous writing residencies include a stint at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs. She holds degrees from Smith College and Oxford University.