ABOUT

I’m an independent radio journalist, a writer, and a reader. I work as a regular contributor to National Public Radio, an editor at Radio Ambulante, and a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Journalism School. My print essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Virginia Quarterly Review. I’ve explored “big” stories like earthquakes, mining disasters, and coups–as well as ones about an indigenous treatment for depression, a family of exiles, and the art of writing love letters.

I started working as a journalist while on a Fulbright in Bolivia, right after college, and got into it the old-fashioned way–out in the field, playing around with a notebook and a radio kit. I still can’t believe you can get paid to listen to people tell their stories. Or that it involves wandering around public settings in a big pair of headphones, as if you’re part of some brotherhood that would also include air traffic controllers and jackhammer operators.

I grew up in rural Maine, where I learned to love reading and storytelling–and occasional silence, too. As a kid, I spent a lot of time on long car rides, looking out the window at trees and water, listening to the radio, and imagining why people do some of the curious things that we do. In college, I studied anthropology. In my work, I often gravitate toward stories about human movement, the natural world, and place.

I speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese. And, terrible but heartfelt French.

In addition to my regular gig, I sometimes talk about storytelling, radio, and foreign reporting, and work with people and organizations that want to find simple, powerful ways to tell their stories.

I divide my time between Latin America, California, and Maine.

To contact me, please write: murphy.annieatgmail.com