Ted Anton is the author of four books and co-editor of a fifth. His book, Planet of Microbes: Perils and Potential of Earth's Essential Organisms (University of Chicago Press, 2017) describes the power of single-celled life to rescue the Earth, while a previous book, The Longevity Seekers, traced the science and business race for a drug to extend human health. His book Bold Science: Seven Scientists Who Are Changing Our World (Henry Holt: 2000, W.H. Freeman, paperback: 2001) was an Amazon.com Science Book pick and a featured choice on howthingswork.com. The San Francisco Chronicle described it as being on the “pioneering edge of science writing, spreading the notion that is a viable field of literary work."
Anton's first book, Eros, Magic and the Murder of Professor Culianu (Northwestern University Press: 1996), examined the unsolved murder of a University of Chicago scholar. Winner of the Carl Sandburg Award and finalist for a Book Award from the Investigative Reporters and Editors, it was reviewed in media ranging from The New York Review of Books, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, NPR and NBC. It appears in German, Spanish, Italian, Romanian and other editions. The New York Times called it an “engrossing story of a twentieth century original," and Publishers Weekly (starred review) an “intellectual thriller."
He co-edited The New S cience Journalists (Ballantine: 1995), which became a text in graduate and undergraduate journalism and science writing programs.
His magazine work for publications like Lingua Franca, The Sciences, Chicago, Chicago Tribune, Publishers Weekly and others has been a finalist for a National Magazine Award and cited in three editions of Best American Essays. A National Science Foundation and MacArthur Fellowship reviewer and former Fulbright Senior Research Fellow, Anton has given presentations at venues from the New York Public Library, Newberry Library, the Harvard Club, University of Chicago, Denver Museum of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and for government, industry, university, and high school groups.
He is a professor in the English department at DePaul University in Chicago where he teaches courses in magazine, science and creative writing and American and world literature.