My journalism has been featured on the cover of TIME magazine and in other print publications including The Wall Street Journal, Outside magazine, and Sunset. It has been translated into French, syndicated in U.S. outlets like the San Francisco Chronicle and The Week, and mentioned in The Best American Travel Writing 2020 anthology.
I have lived in three countries and have reported from various places around the globe, including from one of the most remote inhabited atolls in the world. Though I often gravitate toward profiles, I’ve published narrative features, essays, criticism, service stories, and more. I enjoy the puzzle of stringing together facts in a novel way, which, hopefully, illuminates the truth anew and changes readers’ perceptions.
Previously, I cut my teeth as a music writer before working on staff at the storied magazines Sunset and Outside. At the latter, I fact checked legally and emotionally fraught features about a trans rock climber, Tibetan self-immolators, and an outdoorswoman who died by suicide after being sexually assaulted.
Now a full-time freelancer based in Northern California, I’ve been writing for TIME since 2021. I’m a research editor at Preservation magazine and The Atavist, where I’ve contributed reporting. I have formal training as a copyeditor and bring it with me when fact checking, which I’ve done for myriad other publications, including Columbia Journalism Review and The California Sunday Magazine’s late, live sister production, Pop-Up Magazine, to name a couple.
Want to connect about freelance reporting, fact checking or editing assignments? Reach me at alisonevanhouten [at] gmail [dot] com.
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