Stephen Kurczy

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From the muddy jungles of Cambodia to the dense rain forests of Brazil, I’ve reported stories for outlets including The Christian Science Monitor, The Economist, and The New York Times over the past 20 years.

I grew up in New England, and from an early age I enjoyed exploring and documenting my adventures (I even made a home movie about bicycling across America), which led me to a career in journalism. After college I worked for a newspaper in Phnom Penh, backpack-reported across Asia, and later meandered through South America as a roving correspondent. One of my favorite trips was a three-week mountaineering expedition to the summit of Aconcagua, the tallest peak in the Western Hemisphere, which I wrote about for The New Yorker. 

I took a break from deadlines in 2016 to participate in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship in Business and Economics Journalism at Columbia University, where I started researching a book about a mysterious area of Appalachia where cell service and WiFi are restricted by state and federal laws. The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence (HarperCollins, 2021), was named a book of the month by the Washington Post as well as one of one of USA Today’s “5 books not to miss.” More recently, I contributed a chapter to The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism (2024) on the evolution of media ethics codes, with a focus on how a 1984 insider trading scandal at The Wall Street Journal influenced standards. 

I’m a contributing editor at Appalachia, the country’s oldest journal of mountaineering and conversation, as well as a longtime member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, through which I maintain the Boott Spur Trail on Mt. Washington. If I’m not reading, writing, or reporting, I’m probably outside climbing, running, or building cairns above treeline.

Prior to joining SUNY, I was a visiting assistant professor at Providence College in Rhode Island. I’ve also taught at Seton Hall University, The King’s College, and Mitchell College. I have not owned a cellphone since 2009.

• Education
  • M.S. in Journalism, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
  • B.A. in Philosophy, Calvin College
  • Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism, Columbia University
  • Coursework at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary
• Teaching Areas & Professional Expertise
  • Adventure and wilderness writing
  • Business journalism
  • Editing 
  • Media law and ethics
  • Narrative nonfiction
  • News writing and reporting
• Selected Publications
  • Kurczy, S. (2025). In the ‘Quietest Town in America,’ Does True Silence Actually Exist? Condé Nast Traveler. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2024). The Journalist and the Trader. In J. Weber and R. S. Dunham, The Routledge Companion to Business Journalism. Routledge. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2022). Do Cell Phones Belong in the Mountains? A 24-Mile Journey With a 1-Year-Old Suggests a Quieter Mountain Way. Appalachia, vol. 73, no. 2, 8-23.
  • Kurczy, S. (2022). Even in the Federal ‘Quiet Zone,’ the Digital Din Hijacks People’s Brains. The Washington Post. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2021). The Truth About the Quietest Town in America. Wired. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2021). The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence. HarperCollins.
  • Kurczy, S. (2020). Aldir Blanc, Lyricist Who Pushed Samba’s Boundaries, Dies at 73. The New York Times.
  • Kurczy, S. (2020). Common Ground. Alpinist.
  • Kurczy, S. (2016). Brazil’s Best Hope. Americas Quarterly. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2015). Running to Narnia: The Quest for the Two-Hour Marathon. Vice.
  • Kurczy, S. (2015). Kílian Jornet, Sky Runner. The New Yorker.
  • Kurczy, S. (2014). World Cup Rumble in the Amazon Jungle. Zócalo Public Square.
  • Kurczy, S. (2014). Social Workers Channel Indiana Jones to Deliver Welfare Checks to Brazil’s Amazon. The Christian Science Monitor. 
  • Kurczy, S. (2009). Evil and the Law: Thirty Years After He Was Put Out of Business, a Torturer Gets His Day in Court. The Economist.
• Presentations
  • Invited speaker on feature writing, Seton Hall University, 2022.
  • Invited speaker on narrative nonfiction, The New School, 2022.
  • Invited speaker on book writing, Columbia University, 2018 and 2019.
• Awards, Honors & Service
  • Founder and judge of the annual Quiet Zone Essay Contest, which awards $1,000 in prizes to student-written essays about life in America’s only National Radio Quiet Zone
  • Awarded book-writing research grant from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2017
  • Second place from Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists for in-depth reporting, 2007
  • First place from New England Press Association for best social issues feature story, 2006