COLLEGEVILLE PA – Award-winning investigative journalist Shoshana Walter will talk about what she calls the nation’s “failed response to the opioid crisis” during an online author talk hosted March 24 (2026; Tuesday) at 2 p.m. by Ursinus College and its Myrin Library.
Walter is the author of “Rehab, An American Scandal,” published last August by Simon & Schuster. She will be interviewed by Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet Barbara Ellen Kingsolver. The online talk is free to attend, but advance registration is required.
The publisher says Walter’s book “exposes the country’s failed response to the opioid crisis, and the malfeasance, corruption, and snake oil which blight the drug rehabilitation industry.” It offers “the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery.”
Walter contends more people have access to treatment today than ever before, but she contends it is not working? “The answer is that in America – where anyone can get addicted – only certain people get a real chance to recover,” she suggests. “Despite record numbers of overdose deaths, our default response is still to punish, while rehabs across the United States fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients.”
Ursinus describes the talk as an “urgent conversation” from which listeners can gain “insight on how we might fix the system to save lives.”
Photo provided by Myrin Library at Ursinus College
About the Participants
Walter is a reporter for the Marshall Project, covering the criminal justice system. Her reporting has been honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Selden Ring, and she has won the Knight Award for Public Service, the Edward R. Murrow Award, and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. Walter started her work on the treatment system at The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, in newspapers, and on National Public Radio stations across the country. She is based in Oakland CA.
Kingsolver’s widely known works include “The Poisonwood Bible,” the tale of a missionary family in the Congo; and “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” a nonfiction account of her family’s attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel, “Demon Copperhead.” Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
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