About
Justine van der Leun is an award-winning independent journalist and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. She is writing a forthcoming book on women and mass incarceration, to be published in 2026 by Ecco/HarperCollins, and working on a forthcoming narrative journalism podcast with Campside Media. Justine’s prior books include, most recently, We Are Not Such Things, and her features have been published in the New York Review of Books, New York Magazine, Harper’s, the Guardian, VQR, and the New Republic, among others. Justine is also the host, lead reporter, and co-producer of the investigative podcast Believe Her. She has been honored with the James Aronson Award, the Sigma Delta Chi Award, the Gracie Award, the iHeart Radio Award, and the Ambie Award for Excellence in Audio. Justine has received grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Type Investigations, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, and fellowships from New America, the Emerson Collective, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Logan Nonfiction Program, and PEN America.
Photograph by Beth Mickalonis