Andy Kopsa is an award winning journalist.  Raised on a farm in Grundy County, Iowa, she is based in New York City. She has written for The New York Times, The Nation, Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, The Guardian, TIME and others. She won a Society of Professional Journalists Award for Reporting Events of Public Importance and was a fellow at University of Southern California Annenberg’s Center Knight Grant for Reporting on Religion in American Public Life.

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I don’t specialize in one thing.  However  most of my work focuses on some aspect of women’s issues (which for me includes poverty, access to abortion and reproductive healthcare, equal pay, domestic violence, rape) and issues that impact the LGBTQ community.

I am an expert at deconstructing 990 tax forms for 501c3 organizations.  I can FOIA until the cows come home.  I once sat in the US Department of Health and Human Services lobby in DC chasing a long overdue FOIA until someone finally came down to deal with me.  I have no problem asking pointed questions of people in positions of power.   I practice trauma informed journalism with victims of violence of any stripe.

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If I could eradicate one societal ill: Women in poverty around the world. Women living in poverty – and the social structures that reinforce it – is the poison that lives through generations and impacts every aspect of society.

When I’m alone, I like to (re)read Shirley Jackson while I eat Maytag Blue cheese and put off all the crap I should be doing.

The three women, dead or alive, I most want to see square off on Jeopardy are Bea Arthur, Sarah Palin and Joan Didion.