ANNIE AVILÉS
I make stories about the future of rural places and the people who call them home.
Outlets that publish those stories include The Atlantic, Harper’s, NPR, Vice, Virginia Quarterly Review, and others. Awards my work has earned include a Murrow, a Fulbright, and a range of journalism and writing fellowships.
I come from a rural, blue-collar community. And I believe journalism, like most trades, is best transmitted via lived experience. So much of my work relies on skills learned out in the world: from growing up in an isolated place where people depend on each other and the land, to waiting tables as a teenager—a master class in talking to strangers—to working as a translator and fixer.
(I share this because I don’t think we talk enough about experiential knowledge.)
While fixing and translating in Bolivia, I learned how to put together a story by observing the journalists who would hire me to help carry out their reporting. My first solo assignment came from NPR and involved figuring out how to cross the Andes overland to cover an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in southern Chile. Following that, I spent three years covering environmental disasters and resource conflict for NPR and different magazines, reporting from small towns and rural communities throughout the Americas. After a move to the U.S., I started to help people build podcasts, including the team at Vice Audio, where I led editorial. For a couple years in there, I also led the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Maine.
Today, in addition to freelance reporting, I consult on select podcasts, including Staying Human with Dr. Vivek Murthy, where I work as series editor.
For assignments, consulting, or stories:
hello at annieaviles.com
Photo of a broken computer and other trash in a ditch. Nor Yungas, Bolivia.