An Introduction

I'm a writer, editor, podcaster, and activist living in Austin, Texas with my husband, two unusually small but nevertheless vocal cats, and an eminently goofy hound dog. I mostly write about Texas, politics, and reproductive justice, and I often engage in strategic communications work around sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. 

This website exists because maybe you'd like to hire me to write, edit, or produce a thing for you, and you're interested in hearing what I'm about.

I am deeply biased in favor of abortion rights and access, and I like it that way. From 2018-2021, I led the communications team at If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, a legal organization at the vanguard of the reproductive health, rights, and justice movements. A lot of folks know me as the founder of the Taco or Beer Challenge. Because writing is a non-stop hustle and I've never been happy doing one thing at a time anyway, I've been freelancing for nearly 20 years, even while working a slate of full-time journalism (and very not-journalism) gigs. My work has been published in the New York Times, The Nation, MSNBC, the Columbia Journalism Review, DAME Magazine, Rewire News, The Texas Observer, on Cosmopolitan.com and Rolling Stone.com, in the Women's Review of Books, D Magazine, the Austin Chronicle, Salon, Bitch, Ms. Magazine, Jezebel, The Frisky and the Los Angeles Review Of Books' literary magazine, The Offing, among many others.

I was the Texas Observer's digital editor from 2015-2016, juggling a host of editing duties as well as keeping an eye on a state legislature famous for its tomfoolery while producing the Texas Miracle podcast, an audio news magazine dedicated to progressive politics, cultural commentary, and social justice in Texas. Prior to my gig at the Texas Observer, I covered reproductive rights and state politics across the South as a senior political reporter with Rewire, a non-profit online magazine focused on reproductive rights and justice, while writing the Texas Observer's monthly "State of the Media" column. Texans may also recognize my name from the virtual pages of Eater Austin and Eater Dallas, or from the Dallas Observer alt-weekly, where I worked my first gigs in journalism as a staff writer and humor columnist.

I've done a lot of personal writing and podcasting about social change and pop culture (and the intersections of social change and pop culture). My newsletter is Home with the Armadillo. There, I write a weekly abortion news roundup and publish everything from yelling about the patriarchy to country music criticism to supernatural fiction. I produced Tomato Pickup, a podcast about Bloody Marys, and I was the executive producer and host of Traitor Radio, a storytelling podcast featuring activist homework for listeners. I once wrote and edited a food blog about politics. Sometimes I talk about twang with my husband on Nope Country, a podcast about the culture and politics of country music. We also have a goofy little podcast about low-budget holiday films.

I have a B.A. in digital journalism from New York University, and an M.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin.

I'm always happy to take questions and assignments at andrea dot grimes at gmail dot com. For communications that require a more secure channel, you can contact me at grimesandrea at proton dot me.