Book Talk | Michael Edison Hayden | Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town

Join the Institute for Public Knowledge on Wednesday, October 28 (5:30-7:00 PM) for an event with Michael Edison Hayden. He will discuss his book, Strange People on the Hill: How Extremism Tore Apart a Small American Town, with Jared Holt and Christopher Mathias.

Michael Edison Hayden is an author and investigative reporter specializing in right-wing extremism. He is the author of Strange People on the Hill (Bold Type Books/Hachette, 2026) and co-hosts “Posting Through It.” 

Jared Holt is a journalist and researcher covering right-wing political movements in the United States. He currently works as a senior researcher at Open Measures, an open-source social intelligence platform, and co-hosts the podcast “Posting Through It.” His reporting and analysis has appeared in The Washington Post, MS NOW, The Daily Beast, and Columbia Journalism Review, among others.

Christopher Mathias is a reporter at Talking Points Memo based in New York. His book, “To Catch A Fascist: The Fight To Expose The Radical Right,” was named one of the “Best Books of 2026” by The New Yorker. Previously a reporter at HuffPost, he has also written for The Guardian, MS NOW, The Nation, and Zeteo. He goes by @letsgomathias on Bluesky and X.