Mara Leveritt, author of Devil's Knot, to speak at ASUMH for the second annual Terre Ware Book Author Lecture Series on March 7
Arkansas State University-Mountain Home will host the second-annual Terre Ware Book Author Lecture Series on March 7 at 7:00 p.m. with a free lecture by Mara Leveritt, author of Devil’s Knot, All Quiet at Mena, and The Boys on the Tracks. No tickets are required for the lecture which will be held in the Vada Sheid Community Development Center on the ASUMH campus.
Leveritt is an American investigative reporter best known for her examinations of official conduct regarding serious crimes in Arkansas. Though often categorized as a “true crime” writer, she says, “I’m more interested in what happens when officials mishandle criminal cases, a sub-genre I’ve dubbed ‘crime after crime’.”
Leveritt’s best known work is Devil’s Knot, about three Arkansas teenagers who were convicted virtually without evidence of having murdered three eight-year-old boys in a crime prosecutors said arose from the teens’ alleged interest in “the occult.” Library Journal called Devil’s Knot “an indictment of a culture and legal system that failed to protect children as defendants or victims.” The New York Times listed the book among 50 “classic” accounts of murder in the United States. A 2013 film based on it starred Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon.
Kirkus described Leveritt’s first book, The Boys on the Tracks, as “a wrecking-ball tale of tragedy, malfeasance, and machine politics.” Despite the passage of 35 years, the murders it examined remain unsolved.
Leveritt’s most recent book, All Quiet at Mena, followed the official blocks investigators in Louisiana and Arkansas faced after being assigned to probe a major drug smuggling operation. In 2022, the Arkansas State Library honored that book as one the year’s best.
While a contributing editor to the Arkansas Times, Leveritt became widely known for her reporting on prisons. In a 1991 article titled Blood Money, she broke news of the state’s hidden practice of selling inmates’ plasma on the international market. Though the program was ended three years later, the effects of Arkansas’s prison blood scandal continue to reverberate, as victims of hepatitis-tainted blood around the world seek acknowledgement and compensation.
As a speaker, Leveritt advocates for certain changes to the U.S. legal system. She particularly calls for all criminal interrogations and trials to be electronically recorded. In 1999, the Arkansas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty honored her as its Abolitionist of the Year. Though not an attorney, she speaks at law schools and has written for legal journals.
Leveritt sees prosecutor misconduct as an under-examined problem in the criminal justice system. As a result of what she’s witnessed through reporting, she has called for vigorous prosecution of prosecutors who abuse their powers. More than once, in response, the Arkansas Supreme Court’s Committee on Professional Conduct threatened her with a fine or imprisonment. In 2011, after learning that others had received similar warnings, Leveritt filed a federal civil rights lawsuit, arguing that the notices served as attempts to silence critics that and, as such, they violated the First Amendment. Two years later, the high court ended that practice.
Leveritt has been awarded Arkansas’s prestigious Porter Price, its Booker Worthen Prize (twice), a $10,000 Laman Writer’s Fellowship, and an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a member of the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame.
For more information on the lecture, contact Mollie Morgan at (870) 508-6191 or email mmorgan@asumh.edu.
