Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Stephanie Elizondo Griest is an award-winning journalist and author with over two decades of experience reporting from around the globe. Her five books include two memoirs, “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana” (Villard/Random House, 2004) and “Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines” (Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster, 2008). She is also the author of the guidebook “100 Places Every Woman Should Go” (Travelers’ Tales, 2007) and the editor of “Best Women’s Travel Writing” (Travelers’ Tales, 2010). Stephanie has won numerous awards for her work, including a Luce Scholarship to China, a Hodder Fellowship to Princeton, a Scotty Reston Fellowship at The New York Times, a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, and a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Prize.

Stephanie began her career as a political reporter at the Austin bureau of the Associated Press, where she covered George W. Bush’s last legislative session as governor and his bid for the presidency. Over the years, her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, The Oxford American, Travel + Leisure, BBC Travel, The Dallas Morning News, Texas Monthly Magazine, The Texas Observer, Los Angeles Review of Books, and more. As a teacher, Stephanie has taught at more than a dozen writer’s conferences, as well as at literary organizations and universities. Since 2013, she has served as an associate professor of creative nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

• 20+ years of journalism experience
• Won a Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award for her travel writing
• Author, editor, and contributor to several Travelers’ Tales guidebooks
• Won a Luce Scholarship to China, a Hodder Fellowship to Princeton, and a Scotty Reston Fellowship at the New York Times
• Received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The University of Texas at Austin
• Received a master's degree in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa