About the Author

Photo by Sharon L. Palmer, September 2017.

Parker J. Palmer is a writer, speaker, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. He is the founder and senior partner emeritus of the Center for Courage & Renewal. Palmer holds a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as thirteen honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, and an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press.

Palmer is the author of nine books—including several award-winning titles—that have sold over 1.5 million copies and been translated into twelve languages: Healing the Heart of Democracy, The Courage to Teach, A Hidden Wholeness, Let Your Life Speak, The Active Life, To Know as We Are Known, The Company of Strangers, The Promise of Paradox, and The Heart of Higher Education (with Arthur Zajonc).

In 1998, the Leadership Project, a national survey of ten thousand educators, named Palmer one of the thirty “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the ten key “agenda-setters” of the past decade. Since 2002, the Accrediting Commission for Graduate Medical Education has given annual Parker J. Palmer “Courage to Teach” and “Courage to Lead” Awards to directors of exemplary medical residency programs. In 2005, Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer, was published.

In 2010, Palmer was given the William Rainey Harper Award, whose previous recipients include Margaret Mead, Elie Wiesel, Marshall McLuhan, and Paolo Freire. In 2011, the Utne Reader named him one of twenty-five Visionaries on its annual list of “People Who Are Changing the World.” In 2017, the Shalem Institute gave Palmer its annual Contemplative Voices Award, “created to honor those individuals who have made significant contributions to contemplative understanding, living and leadership and whose witness helps others live from the divine wellspring of compassion, strength, and authentic vision.”

A member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Palmer lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife, Sharon L. Palmer.