Ashley Harrell is a Bay Area journalist who spent the last four years writing investigative and human interest non-fiction for SF Weekly and other Village Voice Media publications. Her stories have garnered numerous awards and invitations to speak on the radio, in classrooms, and at last year's Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction Conference in Grapevine, Texas. Her story about a murder witness from a San Francisco housing project took first place in the long-form news category in the 2009 AltWeekly Awards.

Ashley holds a master's degree in journalism from New York University and an undergraduate business degree from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC-Chapel Hill. She's worked as a reporter for Newsday in New York City, a writing coach for an N.Y.U. arts reporting class based in London, a spa coupon saleswoman on the sun-baked streets of South Florida (where she grew up), and a waitress at various Chili's restaurants across America.

She can beat most people at ping pong.

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