In the world of language commentary, Barbara Wallraff offers an unequaled combination of authority, accessibility, and popularity. She is the author of the new book "Your Own Words," published by Counterpoint, and the national best seller "Word Court," published in 2000. She is also a senior editor and words columnist at "The Atlantic Monthly," where she has worked since 1983; a weekly newspaper columnist for the King Features Syndicate (visit the weekly column�s Web site at www.wordcourt.com); and the editor-in-chief of the newsletter "Copy Editor: Language News for the Publishing Profession," whose subscribers include nearly 3,000 newsrooms, freelance editors, magazines, universities, corporate communications departments, and publishing houses nationwide. Barbara is a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, the American Copy Editors Society, the American Dialect Society, and the Modern Language Association.

Barbara has been an invited speaker at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the National Writers Workshop, the Nieman Foundation, the Radcliffe Publishing Course, and national or international conventions of the American Copy Editors Society, the Council of Science Editors, the International Education of Students organization, and the Journalism Education Association. She has been interviewed about language on the "Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" and dozens of radio programs including "Fresh Air," "The Diane Rehm Show," and "All Things Considered." National Public Radio�s "Morning Edition" once commissioned her to copy edit the U.S. Constitution.

Her writing about language has appeared in publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wilson Quarterly, and The Boston Globe. The Genus V edition of the game Trivial Pursuit contains a question about Barbara and her Word Court column.