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. My work has earned a Murrow, a Fulbright, and a range of journalism and writing fellowships.
I come from a rural, blue-collar community. And I believe that to journalism, like most trades, requires skills that are best transmitted via lived experience. For this and many other reasons, I’m grateful to have grown up in a place where people depend on each other and the land, to have waited tables throughout high school and college, and to have worked as a translator and fixer.
I learned how to put together a story in Bolivia the year after I graduated college, while working alongside different journalists who would hire me to help navigate the region and carry out interviews. My first solo assignment came from NPR and involved figuring out how to cross the Andes overland during a state of emergency, to reach the epicenter of a 8.8 magnitude earthquake in southern Chile. From there, I went on to cover environmental disasters and resource conflict for NPR and different magazines, reporting from small towns and rural communities throughout North and South America. Eventually I started to help people build podcasts, including the team at Vice Audio, where I led editorial. For a couple years, I also chaired 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 refuse in a ditch. Nor Yungas, Bolivia.