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Samantha Leigh Allen is an American journalist and author. Allen worked as a senior reporter for The Daily Beast and now works as Senior Culture Editor at Them. In 2019 she published the nonfiction book Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States.
Samantha Leigh Allen | |
|---|---|
| Born | California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Brigham Young University Rutgers University Emory University (PhD) |
| Notable works | Real Queer America (2019) |
| Notable awards | GLAAD Media Award (2018) |
Allen was born in California and grew up in New Jersey.[1] She was raised in a conservative, Mormon household.[2][3] As a young adult she served as a Mormon missionary.[4] She officially left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2008 and transferred from Brigham Young University to Rutgers University later that year.[2][5] She came out as a transgender woman in 2012.[6][7]
She has a Ph.D. in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies with a certificate in Psychoanalytic Studies from Emory University.[8][9] She was a recipient of a George W. Woodruff Fellowship while at Emory.[10] In 2013 she received the John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University Bloomington.[11] In 2014 she was a recipient of the Unsung Heroine Award from the Center for Women at Emory as well as a Transgender Advocate of the Year Award from Emory's Office of LGBT Life.[12]
Allen covered LGBTQ stories as a senior reporter for The Daily Beast and worked as a staff writer for Fusion TV's Sex + Life vertical.[11][13] She later became a Senior Culture Editor at Them.[14] She has written for The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Out, CNN, and Crosscut.com.[12] Allen has also written for LGBTQ media outlets including Them and Logo TV's NewNowNext as a freelance writer.[15][16] She also writes a travel newsletter called Get Lost on Substack and co-hosts a podcast about the WNBA called Double W with Laurel Powell.[15]
In 2018 she received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article for her article on the cultural erasure of bisexual men. In 2019 she was nominated for a GLAAD Award her piece on non-binary inclusion in the workplace.[12] In 2018 Allen published Love & Estrogen with Amazon Original Stories, which is a biographical queer romantic comedy about meeting her wife at the Kinsey Institute.[12]
In 2019 she published the biography Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States, which won the Judy Turner Prize for Community Service at the Decatur Books Festival.[12][17] Her book focuses on LGBTQ communities in Utah, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi.[15][18][19][20]
Allen's first fiction novel, Patricia Wants to Cuddle, was published June 28, 2022 by Zando. It follows the final four contestants on a reality dating show as they encounter a creature named Patricia in the woods on a remote island.[21][22]
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