Sarah Stillman is an American professor, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine,[1] and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist focusing on immigration policy,[2] the criminal justice system,[3] and the impacts of climate change on workers.[4] Stillman won a National Magazine Award in 2012 for her reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan and again in 2019 for her article in The New Yorker on deportation as a death sentence.[5] She won a 2012 George Polk Award for her reporting on the high-risk use of young people as confidential informants in the war on drugs,[6][7] and a second Polk Award in 2021 for coverage of migrant workers and climate change.[8] She also won the 2012 Hillman Prize.[9] In 2016, she was named a MacArthur Fellow.[10] She won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for her coverage in The New Yorker[11] about troubling injustices in felony murder prosecutions in the U.S.

Sarah Stillman
Born1984 (age 39–40)
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
EducationGeorgetown Day School
Alma materYale University,
Oxford University
Notable awardsGeorge Polk Award (2012),
Hillman Prize (2012),
MacArthur Fellow (2016),
Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting (2024)

Her investigative reporting has shed light on profiteering in key areas of U.S. life, particularly prisons and jails;[12] immigration detention facilities;[13] disaster recovery programs; and U.S. war zone contracting.[14] She has written in-depth stories on the return of debtors’ prisons, the police use and abuse of civil asset forfeiture, family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, and more.[15]

She runs the Yale Investigative Reporting Lab, a collaborative public-interest journalism project that seeks to deepen coverage of criminal justice, climate change, migration, and mental health.[16] Stillman also teaches narrative non-fiction at Yale University's English Department.[15]

In 2016, Stillman became founding director of the Global Migration Program at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where she taught a course on “Gender and Migration” and mentored post-graduate fellows on a range of refugee-related reporting projects.[17]

The rights to a number of her articles in The New Yorker have been sold to Hollywood filmmakers and studios, including her story on confidential informants, which was acquired in 2014 by Paramount Pictures and Oscar-winning writer/producer William Monahan.[18]

Stillman was elected in 2020 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which includes “world leaders in the arts and sciences, business, philanthropy, and public affairs … who promote nonpartisan recommendations that advance the public good.”[19]

Education

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Stillman graduated from Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C.,[20] and graduated summa cum laude with exceptional distinction from Yale University in 2006.[21] While in college, she founded and edited an interdisciplinary feminist journal, Manifesta,[22] and co-directed the Student Legal Action Movement, a group devoted to reforming the American prison system.[23] At Yale, Stillman taught poetry and writing at to inmates at the men's maximum-security prison in Cheshire, CT.[15]

Stillman was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University.[24] In 2009, she was embedded with the 116th Military Police Company.[25]

She was a visiting scholar at New York University and has taught at Columbia University[26] and at Yale University.[27] She is also a staff writer for The New Yorker.[28]

Awards

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In 2005, Stillman was awarded the Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics.[22]

She was the recipient of the inaugural Reporting Award from the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University in 2010.[29]

Stillman won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Public Interest for her reporting for The New Yorker from Iraq and Afghanistan on labor abuses and human trafficking on United States military bases.[30] She won a second National Magazine Award for Public Interest in 2021 for her article in The New Yorker on the deaths of immigrants deported by the U.S.[5]

She is also the recipient of the Overseas Press Club's Joe and Laurie Dine Award for international human-rights reporting, the Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism, and the Michael Kelly Award.[31][32]

Stillman won the 2013 Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York for in-depth reporting on police who seize citizens’ assets without trial in a process called civil forfeiture.[33] She also won the Molly National Journalism Prize in 2013.[34]

Stillman received the New America Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting in 2015 on the lucrative migrant-extortion industry in the U.S. border region. “Stillman took great risks to accompany migrants along the dangerous 3,000-mile trail from Central America through Mexico to the United States,” the award citation stated.[35]

In 2016, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded Stillman a MacArthur fellowship.[36]

She reported and voiced “The Essential Workers of the Climate Crisis” for WNYC Studios, which won the national Edward R. Murrow Award for best radio news documentary in 2022.[37]

In 2020, her essay “Like a Monarch” appeared in All We Can Save, a collection of essays and poetry that highlights a wide range of women's voices in the environmental movement.[38] Stillman's work also appears in The Best American Magazine Writing 2012[39] and The Best American Magazine Writing 2017.[40]

In 2024, as a staff writer of The New Yorker, she won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for her coverage of troubling injustices in felony murder prosecutions in the U.S.[11]

Selected bibliography

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  • Stillman, Sarah (2000). Soul searching : a girl's guide to finding herself. Illustrated by Susan Gross. Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words.
  • — (2001). Soul searching journal : a girl's guide to finding herself. New York: Simon Pulse/Beyond Words.
  • — (2012). Soul searching : a girl's guide to finding herself. Updated ed. Illustrated by Susan Gross. New York: Simon Pulse. ISBN 978-1582703039.
  • — (April 8, 2013). "Up in the air". Goings on About Town. Dept. of Hobbyists. The New Yorker. Vol. 89, no. 8. pp. 24, 26. Retrieved 2015-12-21.

References

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  1. ^ "Sarah Stillman". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  2. ^ "AILA - AILA Presents Jonathan Blitzer and Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker with the 2018 Media Leadership Award". www.aila.org. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  3. ^ McCormick, Andrew (2018-11-01). "Q&A: New Yorker's Sarah Stillman on Oklahoma women in prison and reporting amid trauma". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  4. ^ Stillman, Sarah (2021-11-01). "The Migrant Workers Who Follow Climate Disasters". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  5. ^ a b "NEW YORKER, TIMES MAGAZINE AND TOPIC WIN TOP HONORS AT NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARDS". asme.memberclicks.net. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  6. ^ "Past Winners | Long Island University". liu.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  7. ^ "Throwaways: Recruited by Police & Thrown into Danger, Young Informants are Drug War's Latest Victims". Democracy Now!. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  8. ^ "Past Winners | Long Island University". liu.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  9. ^ "2012 Hillman Prize for Magazine Journalism". Hillman Foundation. 2012-04-14. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  10. ^ "Sarah Stillman — MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2016-09-22.
  11. ^ a b LaForme, Ren (2024-05-06). "Here are the winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes". Poynter. Retrieved 2024-05-06.
  12. ^ Stillman, Sarah (2014-06-16). "Get Out of Jail, Inc". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  13. ^ Stillman, Sarah (2015-04-20). "Kidnapped at the Border". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  14. ^ Stillman, Sarah (2011-05-30). "The Invisible Army". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  15. ^ a b c "Sarah Stillman | English". english.yale.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  16. ^ "Yale Investigate Reporting Lab". www.yirl.org. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  17. ^ "The New Yorker: When Deportation Is a Death Sentence | YaleGlobal Online". archive-yaleglobal.yale.edu. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  18. ^ "'The Departed's William Monahan Making Pic From New Yorker Exposé On Drug Cop Misuse Of Kid Snitches". IMDb. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  19. ^ "Sarah Stillman | American Academy of Arts and Sciences". www.amacad.org. 2024-06-19. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  20. ^ "T-G publisher part of 2-day D.C. symposium on 'The United States in the Age of Trump' - Times Gazette". www.timesgazette.com. 2018-02-09. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  21. ^ "Sarah Stillman (PC '06): the search for truth as an Investigative Journalist". The Yale Globalist. 2012-02-09. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  22. ^ a b "Yale Student Wins First Prize in Ethics Essay Contest". YaleNews. 2005-05-26. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  23. ^ Hill, Tyler; Scheinman, Ted Scheinman (29 November 2005). "Four seniors win Marshall Scholarship". yaledailynews.com. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  24. ^ "Scholar Names S-Z". www.marshallscholarship.org. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  25. ^ "Sarah Stillman, Author at". Truthdig: Expert Reporting, Current News, Provocative Columnists. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  26. ^ "Columbia Journalism School's Sarah Stillman Receives a MacArthur "Genius Grant"". Columbia University.
  27. ^ "NYU Journalism - Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute". NYU Journalism. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  28. ^ Search : The New Yorker
  29. ^ "Sarah Stillman". NYU Journalism. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  30. ^ "Sarah Stillman | English". english.yale.edu. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  31. ^ "Sarah Stillman – Brown Institute". Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  32. ^ "When Deportation is a Death Sentence: Sarah Stillman on Immigration and Criminal Justice". UCI Today. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  33. ^ "2013 Award Recipients and Photo Gallery". THE NEWSWOMEN'S CLUB OF NEW YORK. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  34. ^ "MOLLY National Journalism Prizes". The Texas Observer. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  35. ^ SPJ. "Stillman receives SPJ New America Award for migrant-extortion industry report". www.spj.org. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  36. ^ "Sarah Stillman - MacArthur Foundation". www.macfound.org. Retrieved 2019-02-19.
  37. ^ "2022 National Edward R. Murrow Award Winners - Radio Television Digital News Association". www.rtdna.org. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  38. ^ "Like The Monarch, Human Migrations During Climate Change | How to Save a Planet". Gimlet. Retrieved 2024-06-19.
  39. ^ Holt, Sid, ed. (December 2012). The Best American Magazine Writing 2012. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-16223-4.
  40. ^ Holt, Sid, ed. (December 2017). The Best American Magazine Writing 2017. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54365-1.
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