Professor
2012, MFA-Creative Nonfiction, University of Iowa
1997, BA-Journalism, University of Texas at Austin
1997, BA-Post-Soviet Studies, University of Texas at Austin
Bio
Stephanie Elizondo Griest is the author of four books of creative nonfiction: the travel memoirs Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines; All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands; and the guidebook 100 Places Every Woman Should Go. She also edited Best Women’s Travel Writing in 2010. Winner of a Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, she has lectured around the globe, in capacities ranging from a Moth storyteller to a literary ambassador for the U.S. State Department.
To read more, visit my websitePublications:
BOOKS
- All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands (UNC Press, 2017)
- Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines (Washington Square Press/Simon & Schuster, 2008)
- Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana (Villard/Random House, 2004)
- 100 Places Every Woman Should Go (Travelers’ Tales, 2007)
- Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 (Editor) (Travelers’ Tales, 2010)
RECENT ESSAYS
- Does ‘Authentic’ Mexican Food Exist? (BBC Travel, 2021)
- Power Moves: Baile Folklorico Dancers of Mexico (Travel + Leisure, 2020)
- Thy Kingdom Come (2019 Meridel Le Sueur Essay, Water~Stone Review)
- The Saga Continues: How Iceland Became The World’s Most Literary Society (AirBnB Magazine, 2018)
- Chiefing in Cherokee (VQR, 2017 and Best American Travel Writing, 2018)
- Spirit Animal (Orion, 2017)
- The Disciplined Utopia (The Believer, August 2017)
- Art Against The Wall (Oxford American, Spring 2015)
Awards
- Writer-in-Residence, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, NM 2021
- Artist-in-Residence, Marble House Project, Dorset, VT 2019
- Writer-in-Residence, Lannan Foundation, Marfa, TX 2019
- University Research Council Grant, UNC Chapel Hill, 2017
- Faculty Fellow, Institute for the Arts & Humanities, UNC Chapel Hill, 2015
- Inductee, Texas Institute of Letters, 2013
- Winner, PEN Southwest Book Award for Nonfiction, 2009
- Winner, Best Travel Book, International Latino Book Awards, 2008
- Winner, Richard J. Margolis Award for Social Justice Reporting, 2007
- Winner, Best Travel Book, Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition, 2007
- Hodder Fellow, Princeton University, 2005-2006
- Luce Scholar, Henry Luce Foundation, 1997-1998
- USA Today All-Academic First Team, 1996
Courses Taught:
- Intro to Creative Nonfiction
- Advanced Creative Nonfiction
- Honors Creative Nonfiction
- Travel Writing
- Memoir Writing
- Memoir as Witness
- Experiential Writing