





Alice Driver in Conversation with Melissa Montalvo
On Tuesday, September 23, at 11 a.m. EST, the Desk Salon Series invites Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company author Alice Driver in conversation with journalist Melissa Montalvo to discuss the book upon its paperback release, as well as the ongoing work of reporting on meat processing’s effects on workers, animals, and environment.
From the Desk members can find the code for free entry here, and all members will be able to access a video recording along with a text transcript.
WHEN
Tuesday, September 11 a.m. EST
WHERE
Zoom
Attendees will be sent the link one hour prior to the event.
WHO
Alice Driver is a James Beard Award-winning investigative journalist from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. She is the author of Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company (One Signal Publishers 2024). In 2024, the book won the Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. In 2025, Driver participated in The Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Residency, whose former residents include Maya Angelou and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Melissa Montalvo is an award-winning accountability and enterprise reporter at The Fresno Bee newspaper in Fresno, California. She has covered a range of issues including the agricultural industry, government accountability, hospital bankruptcy/business operations and more. Montalvo was recently nominated for a James Beard Media Award for her 2024 investigation into workplace fatalities at the Pitman Family Farms poultry processing operations in central California. The company is known for its popular line of organic, humanely-raised birds called Mary’s Chicken.
On Tuesday, September 23, at 11 a.m. EST, the Desk Salon Series invites Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company author Alice Driver in conversation with journalist Melissa Montalvo to discuss the book upon its paperback release, as well as the ongoing work of reporting on meat processing’s effects on workers, animals, and environment.
From the Desk members can find the code for free entry here, and all members will be able to access a video recording along with a text transcript.
WHEN
Tuesday, September 11 a.m. EST
WHERE
Zoom
Attendees will be sent the link one hour prior to the event.
WHO
Alice Driver is a James Beard Award-winning investigative journalist from the Ozark Mountains in Arkansas. She is the author of Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America's Largest Meatpacking Company (One Signal Publishers 2024). In 2024, the book won the Lukas Work-in-Progress Prize from Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. In 2025, Driver participated in The Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center Residency, whose former residents include Maya Angelou and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Melissa Montalvo is an award-winning accountability and enterprise reporter at The Fresno Bee newspaper in Fresno, California. She has covered a range of issues including the agricultural industry, government accountability, hospital bankruptcy/business operations and more. Montalvo was recently nominated for a James Beard Media Award for her 2024 investigation into workplace fatalities at the Pitman Family Farms poultry processing operations in central California. The company is known for its popular line of organic, humanely-raised birds called Mary’s Chicken.