Samantha Leigh Allen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Samantha Leigh Allen | |
|---|---|
| Born | California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
|
| Education | Brigham Young University Rutgers University Emory University (PhD) |
| Notable works | Real Queer America (2019) |
| Notable awards | GLAAD Media Award (2018) |
| Website | |
| samanthaleighallen.com | |
Samantha Leigh Allen is an American journalist and author. Allen worked as a reporter for The Daily Beast[1] and now works as the managing editor at Them.[2] In 2019, she published the nonfiction book Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States.
Allen was born in California and grew up in New Jersey.[3] She was raised in a conservative Mormon household.[4][5] As a young adult she served as a Mormon missionary.[6] 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.[4][7] She came out as a trans woman in 2012.[8][9]
She has a Ph.D. in women's, gender, and sexuality studies with a certificate in psychoanalytic studies from Emory University.[10][11] She was a recipient of a George W. Woodruff Fellowship while at Emory.[12] In 2013, she received the John Money Fellowship for Scholars of Sexology from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University Bloomington.[13] In 2014, she was a recipient of the Unsung Heroine Award from the Center for Women at Emory[14] as well as a Transgender Advocate of the Year Award from Emory's Office of LGBT Life.[15]
Career
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.[13][1] She later became the managing editor at Them.[2] She has written for The New York Times,[2] Rolling Stone,[2] Out,[16] CNN,[2] and Crosscut.com.[17] Allen has also written for LGBTQ media outlets including Them[2] and Logo TV's NewNowNext as a freelance writer.[18] She also writes a travel newsletter called Get Lost and co-hosts a podcast about the WNBA called Double W with Laurel Powell.[18]
In 2018, she received the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article for her article on the cultural erasure of bisexual men.[19] In 2018, Allen published Love & Estrogen with Amazon Original Stories, which is a biographical romantic comedy about meeting her wife at the Kinsey Institute.[20] In 2019, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award her piece on non-binary inclusion in the workplace.[21]
In 2019 she published the memoir Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States, which won the Judy Turner Prize for Community Service at the Decatur Books Festival.[22][23] Her book focuses on LGBTQ communities in Utah, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi.[18][24][25][26] Real Queer America was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.[27]
Allen's first novel, Patricia Wants to Cuddle, was published June 28, 2022 by Zando.[28] It follows the final four contestants on a realitydating game show as they encounter a creature in the woods on a remote island.[28][29] Her next novel, Roland Rogers Isn't Dead Yet, was also published by Zando on September 10, 2024. The novel revolves around a ghostwriter who is appointed by a closeted actor to write his memoir, only to discover that said actor is dead by the time they are scheduled to meet.[30]
