Josie Abugov is a journalist and fiction writer from Los Angeles. An MFA candidate in fiction at Vanderbilt, she previously worked as an environment reporter at The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com in New Orleans, where she covered AI data centers, coastal land loss, and industrial pollution.

Her team coverage of the Bourbon Street attack was a finalist for a National Journalism Award in Print Reporting from the Center for Integrity in News Reporting and a first place winner in print, general news reporting, and breaking news from the Press Club of New Orleans.

She won the 2024 PEN/Dau Prize for best debut short story for “Daisy the Whale,” published in The Sewanee Review. Her fiction has also been published in Book of the Month’s Volume 0 and Kweli Journal.

She graduated from Harvard in 2023. Her senior thesis on a Louisiana Supreme Court case won the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for academic excellence. A short story she wrote won the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize for best undergraduate story.

She’s rep’d by Jessica Spitz at Janklow and Nesbit. You can reach Josie at josettefelice@gmail.com!