About Stephanie

Stephanie Elizondo Griest is a globetrotting author from the Texas/Mexico borderlands. Her six books include Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana; Mexican Enough; All the Agents and Saints; and Art Above Everything: One Woman’s Global Exploration of the Joys and Torments of a Creative Life. She has also written for the New York Times, Washington Post, VQR, The Believer, BBC, Orion, and Oxford American. Her work has been supported by the Lannan Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Princeton University, and the Institute for Arts and Humanities, and she has won a Margolis Award, an International Latino Book Award, a PEN Southwest Book Award, and two Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism prizes. Currently Professor of Creative Nonfiction at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Elizondo Griest has performed in capacities ranging from a Moth storyteller to a literary ambassador for the U.S. State Department. Wanderlust has led her to 50 countries and 49 states. Her hardest journey was to Planet Cancer in 2017, but she’s officially in remission now. She recently endowed Testimonios Fronterizos, a research grant for student journalists from the borderlands enrolled at her alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism.

Photo Credits:
Alexander Devora
Dhanraj Emanuel

Web Design:
Luisa Peñaflor

Media

VIDEO

AUDIO

MEDIA APPEARANCES

  • List, “At the Intersection of Journalism and Memoir,” LitHub.com, 2 June 2021
  • Interviewed by Abbie Reese, Los Angeles Review of Books, 16 February 2021
  • List, “10 Women Travelers Who Broke All The Rules,” LonelyPlanet.com, 4 January 2021
  • List, “20 Chicana Writers Whose Names You Should Know,” HipLatina.com, 5 November 2019
  • Featured by Rachel Friedman, “Traveling Lite: Why Women’s Travel Memoirs Get Sold Short,” Bitch, 11 July 2018
  • Interviewed by Cristóbal Garza-González, Chiricú Journal, 2018, Vol. 3.1, pages 155-166
  • Reviewed by Mercedes Gallego, El Correo, 7 June 2018, p. 57-58 
  • Interviewed by Krys Boyd, KERA: Dallas NPR: Radio, 8 May 2018
  • Interviewed by Malinda Maynor Lowery, PBS NC: BookWatch: TV, 12 March 2018
  • Interviewed by David Sommerstein, North Country NPR: Radio, 28 March 2018
  • Interviewed by Frank Stasio, “The State of Things,” WUNC: Radio, 22 January 2018
  • Reviewed by Beatriz Terrazas, Dallas Morning News, 23 September 2017
  • Interviewed by Daniel Chacón, KTEP: El Paso NPR: Radio, 18 September 2017
  • Interviewed by Norma Martinez, Texas Public Radio, 15 September 2017
  • Interviewed by Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle, 8 September 2017
  • Reviewed by Charles Kader, Indian Country Today, 6 September 2017
  • Reviewed by Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express News, 4 September 2017     
  • Interviewed by Mike Doherty, Maclean’s Canada, 13 July 2017
  • Profile by Raul Reyes, NBCNews.com, 11 July 2017
  • Reviewed by Brad Tyer, Texas Observer, 29 June 2017
  • Reviewed by Publishers Weekly, 1 May 2017
  • Starred Review by Kirkus, 1 May 2017
  • List, “The Chingona Reading List: Books for Rebels,” ModernTejana.com, 2016
  • List, “15 Writers Every Badass Woman Should Read,” Bustle.com, 16 December 2015
  • Interviewed by Eva Holland, WorldHum.com, 31 March 2010
  • Reviewed by Iris Blasi, Bitch, Fall 2008
  • Interviewed by Jean Feraca, Wisconsin Public Radio, 12 October 2008
  • Reviewed by Kelly Lemieux, Rocky Mountain News, 29 August, 2008
  • Reviewed by Alex Espinoza, Los Angeles Times, 10 August 2008
  • Reviewed by Elizabeth Fishel, SFGATE.com, 5 August 2008
  • Profile by Mike Baird, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 7 January 2008
  • Reviewed by Elaine Wolff, San Antonio Current, 9 May 2007
  • Reviewed by Diane Daniel, Boston Globe, 15 April 2007
  • Profile by Deborah Hamilton-Lynne, “First Female Author Selected for Annual Mayor Book Club,” Austin Woman, April 2007
  • List, “Substance in the Summertime,” National Public Radio, 13 July 2005
  • List, “Best Books of 2004,” San Francisco Chronicle, 12 December 2004
  • Reviewed by Brooke Allen, New York Times Book Review, 6 June 2004
  • Reviewed by Steven Alford, Orange County Register, 16 May 2004
  • Reviewed by Georgia Jones-Davis, Washington Post, 9 May 2004
  • Reviewed by Barbara Belejack, Texas Observer, 13 August 2004
  • Reviewed by South China Morning Post, 11 April 2004
  • Profile by Dick Reavis, “Speaking For a Generation,” San Antonio Current, 25 March 2004
  • Profile by Tracey Wong Briggs, “Graduate Makes Memorable Run for the Borders,” USA Today, 17 March 2004
  • Profile by Pamela LeBlanc, Austin American-Statesman, 18 January 2004

SCHOLARSHIP

  • Sowards, Stacey K. “Rhetoricity of Borders: Whiteness in Latinidad and Beyond,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2021, Vol. 18-1, pages 41-49 
  • Garcia-Avello, Macarena, “Dispatches From the Borderlands In the Trump Era,” New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, 2021, Vol. 18-3, pages 304-31
  • Castillo Planas, Melissa, “Latinx Enough?: Whiteness, Latinidad, and Identity In Memoirs of Finding ‘Home,’ Prose Studies, 2020, Vol. 41-2, pages 179-192
  • DiPrietro, Pilar. Place-Soul: The Sensory Perception of Modern Travel Writing, Master’s Thesis, Winthrop University, 2019
  • Weeber, Stan, Review of All the Agents and Saints, Arkansas Review, April 2018, Vol. 49-1, pages 75-77
  • Hilburn, Andrew M., Review of All the Agents and Saints, Journal of Latin American Geography, 2018, Vol. 17-2, pages 251-253
  • McWha, Madelene, Frost, Warwick, and Laing, Jennifer, “Sustainable Travel Writing? Exploring the Ethical Dilemmas of Twenty-First-Century Travel Writers,” Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2017, Vol. 25-10, 1401-1417
  • Oliver-Rotger, Maria Antonia, “Travel, Autoethnography and ‘Cultural Schizophrenia’ in Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s Mexican Enough,” Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. 2016, Vol. 18 pages 112-129
  • Turner, Jessie D., “Reconsidering the Relationship Between New Mestizaje and New Multiraciality as Mixed-Race Identity Models,” Journal of Critical Mixed Race Studies, 2014, Vol. 1-1, pages 133-148
  • Turner, Jessie D., Scholarly Review of Mexican Enough, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, 2011, Vol. 1, pages 245-249
  • Mendoza, Sylvia, “Being ‘Mexican Enough’: Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s Journey to Acceptance,” The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, 2009. Vol. 19-20, pages 18-20