I am working on a non-fiction book about borders for Viking. In 2021, I received the American Mosaic Journalism Prize and the Covering Climate Now award. I am also working on an investigative reporting project in South Texas with the support of the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

I am a recent Soros Equality Fellow and Jesse H. Jones Dobie Paisano writer-in-residence. My three-part series on borders for The Baffler can be found here. I am the creator of the ReWriting the West series which was published in partnership with Guernica magazine. The essay series, which I curated, edited and contributed to, was supported in part through the Bill Lane Center for the American West media fellowship at Stanford University.

I am the former Texas correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review and a former columnist for the Texas Observer. My work has appeared in the Oxford American, Guernica,  Bon Appétit, The New York Times, CNN.com, Columbia Journalism Review, Quartz, Insight Crime, Mother Jones, Salon, among others. My work has been featured in Nieman Storyboard, Longreads, Longform podcast,Vela and Jezebel.

In 2014, I was awarded a grant from the Nation Investigative Fund to report on the dangers faced by journalists in Mexico. In 2015, I was a Lannan Foundation writer-in-residence in Marfa Texas. I reported from The Washington Post New York bureau for three years.

PBS acquired my documentary film, “Against Mexico-the making of heroes and enemies,” which explores the reenactments, also known as living history, of the Texas Revolution. The film can be viewed online at pbs.org. PBS Newshour featured Against Mexico as part of its 2012 election coverage. My video reports have appeared on Time.com, the multimedia site for the magazine. They include coverage of the violence in Ciudad Juárez, the construction of the border fence in South Texas and the plight of the Sahrawi refugees in the Sahara desert.

My journalism career began in public radio. I have reported for NPR’s Justice Talking, Day to Day, Latino USA and PRI’s The World, Marketplace and the Next Big Thing. Public radio documentaries include investigations into the spread of HIV/AIDS on the U.S.-Mexico border, women and violence in El Salvador and labor abuses in the post Katrina Gulf Coast.

In 2006, I was awarded a Knight fellowship through the International Center for Journalists and assigned to work in El Salvador. I have lectured at CUNY’s Graduate School of Journalism and delivered reporting workshops at numerous conferences and universities.

I am a member of Pen America and based in New York City and Texas. 

I can reached at: mg@michellegarciainc.com