Shannon Sims

Shannon Sims is a journalist, editor and consultant based in New Orleans. She was raised between Louisiana and Texas, managed a hotel on an island in Italy, and spent a decade based in Brazil reporting on Latin America. 

Experience

Originally trained as a lawyer, she has since spent 15 years reporting and editing for major publications. Her reporting has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Washington Post, Travel + Leisure, The Guardian and others. 
As an editor, she was formerly Bloomberg's Editor of Economics and Government for Latin America, and Senior Editor at the Houston Landing, a non-profit newsroom. She managed an investigative project on predatory housing practices that led to a Department of Justice investigation.

She is often featured in television, podcast or radio segments and documentaries, including those on the BBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, PBS and, in Brazil, on O Globo (in Portuguese). Her travel writing was featured on Conde Nast’s Women Who Travel podcast.

She speaks fluent Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Her reporting often takes her to far-flung places; she has reported from a canoe in the Amazon and from the beaches of Zanzibar. She loves sharing the magic of travel with readers, and believes this work creates more empathy in the world. In her free time, she volunteers with organizations that work to reforest Louisiana.

Selected publications

Her writing has been included in anthologies such as the Best American Travel Writing. 

Her work, which often takes a legal bent, has also been cited in dozens of legal journals, including Harvard Law & Policy Review, Columbia Law Review, Georgetown Environmental Law Review, Northwestern Law Review, Boston College Law Review, and in analysis briefs published by the US Department of Justice and the Brazilian government. 
 

Education
Shannon has a BA in International Relations from Pomona College, and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law with a concentration in environmental law. 

Awards
Her multimedia travel reporting has been distinguished with a Lowell Thomas Travel Award from the Society of American Travel Writers, and her editing has been recognized with a Texas Headliners Excellence in Journalism Award.