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Katya Cengel is the author of four non-fiction books including Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) winner Straitjackets and Lunch Money. The San Francisco Chronicle called Straitjackets “incredibly affecting” and Kirkus Reviews called it “harrowing but engrossing”. Cengel’s earlier titles cover everything from minor league baseball in Bluegrass Baseball to falling in love at Chernobyl in From Chernobyl with Love. She has received an Eric Hoffer Academic Press award, two Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), and a Foreword INDIES.
As a journalist Cengel has written for New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine and Atavist Magazine among others. Her writing has taken her to Utah to search for Bigfoot (she didn’t find him) and to Mongolia to write about female street artists. Cengel has been awarded grants from the International Reporting Project, the International Women’s Media Foundation and the International Center for Journalists. Her stories have received a Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Award and a Society for Features Journalism Excellence-in-Features Award.
Cengel teaches journalism at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Her essays and short stories – at least two of which feature dogs – have been published in The Rumpus, Literary Hub, The Louisville Review and Two Thirds North among other places.
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