Associate Fellow at the Attic Institute of Arts and Letters
Santi Elijah Holley has contributed to such national and international outlets as The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, The Atlantic, National Geographic, NPR, The New Republic, The Economist, The Washington Post, and Time. He is the first-place recipient of a 2024 Southern California Journalism Award, the first-place recipient of a 2022 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award, the recipient of a 2019 Robert B. Silvers grant for Work in Progress, and the recipient of the 2017 Oregon Literary Fellowship for nonfiction. He has appeared on NPR’s “Fresh Air” and “All Things Considered,” Al-Jazeera’s “The Take,” CBC’s “Front Burner,” C-SPAN’s “BookTV,” and many other radio and television programs and podcasts. His first book, Murder Ballads, a study of the English and American folk ballad tradition, was published in November 2020 by Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 music book series. His second book, An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created, was published in May 2023 by Mariner Books. An Amerikan Family was selected as a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best History, an NPR selection for “Books We Love,” a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the 2024 Ann M. Sperber Book Prize, and longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. His third book, Beg Borrow Steal: The Visionary Art of Melvin Van Peebles and the Rise of Independent Black Cinema, will be released January 26, 2027, by Mariner Books.