ANNIE AVILÉS

I make stories about landscape, technology, and rural life.

Outlets that publish those stories include The Atlantic, Harper’s, NPR, Radio Ambulante, Vice, and others. My work has been recognized with a Murrow, a Fulbright, and different university fellowships and guest teaching roles.

I come from a rural, blue-collar place. And I believe journalism, like most crafts and trades, is best transmitted via lived experience out in the world. So much of what I understand about interviewing and reporting was learned outside a classroom and away from a screen: first, growing up in an isolated community where people depend on each other and on the land; then later, waiting tables all through high school and college—and after college, working as a translator and fixer in Bolivia.

My first solo reporting assignment involved traveling overland across the Andes to the epicenter of the massive 8.8 Chile earthquake, for NPR. I then spent three years covering environmental disaster and resource conflict for NPR, reporting from small towns and rural communities throughout the Americas.

After a move back to the U.S., I helped create Vice Audio, where I led editorial. Today, in addition to freelance reporting, I consult on select podcasts, including Staying Human with Dr. Vivek Murthy, where I’m series editor.

For assignments, podcast consulting, or story ideas—
hello at annieaviles.com

Photo of a broken computer and other trash in a leafy drainage ditch, taken in Nor Yungas, Bolivia.