Ben Montgomery is the author of “The Man Who Walked Backward: An American Dreamer’s Search For Meaning in the Great Depression.” The book was published by Little, Brown Spark in September, and tells the story of a man named Plennie Wingo, who in 1931, attempted to walk around the world, backward.

This is the third time Montgomery has been on the podcast. He was the guest on Episode 21, when he talked about his first book, “Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail.” That book went on to become a New York Times Bestseller.

He was also one of five guests on Episode 45, which was focused on the work of the late Michael Brick, which was contained in the book, “Everyone Leaves Behind a Name.” The other guests on that show were Wright Thompson, Michael Kruse, Tony Rehagen, and Thomas Lake. 

Montgomery created the website gangrey.com, which was the namesake for this podcast. For years, he was one of the top enterprise reporters at the Tampa Bay Times, where he wrote about everything from the last spectacle lynching in Florida to why cops shoot at suspects. 

He left the Tampa Bay Times in October 2017 to focus on writing “The Man Who Walked Backward.” Now, he finds himself teaching student journalists at the University of Montana as the T. Anthony Pollner Distinguished Visiting Professor. 

Montgomery’s latest book is his third. His second book was titled The Leper Spy: The Story of an Unlikely Hero of World War II. 


He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting in 2010 for his series of stories on the decades of abuse at a Florida reform school for boys. He won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for the same series.

Episode 67: Ben Montgomery

This episode is a rebroadcast of the interview Matt Tullis did with Kelley Benham French in February 2013. They talked about her three-part series “Never Let Go,” which focused on the birth of her and Tom French’s daughter. Juniper was born at 23 weeks and 6 days, weighing just one pound-four ounces.

The series was a hit. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. And it was expanded into a book, which French wrote with Tom. That book is titled “Juniper: The Girl Who Was Born Too Soon.”

Kelley Benham French is currently a professor of practice at the University of Indiana. She recently reported and co-wrote a piece for the USA Today titled “The Long Road Home.” It was about a woman who believed she was a descendant of some of the first slaves in America, and who was trying to figure out who they were.

Kelley Benham French (2013)

Gangrey: The Podcast focuses on narrative journalism and the reporters who write it.

Kelley Benham French (2013)

gangreypodcast

Related tracks