Elly Fishman is an award-winning journalist whose narrative reporting on news and culture has appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, GQ, Fast Company, The Week, Chicago, WBEZ Chicago and NPR, among other places.
For her book Refugee High: Coming of Age in America, Fishman was awarded the Studs and Ida Terkel Award. The Washington Post praised the book as an "absorbing account" of life inside an American high school. Refugee High was named a best book of the year by National Public Radio and the Chicago Public Library. Fishman is a Chicago native and graduate of the University of Chicago. She is currently working on her second book, forthcoming from HarperCollins.
Select Recent Work
Yessenia Ruano's Self-Deportation Story, Rollling Stone, 2025
Amanda Williams, New York Times, 2025
Kat Abughazaleh, GQ, 2025
Candida Alvarez, New York Times, 2025
Chrishona Hodges's Life Sentence, Chicago magazine, 2025
Trapped at O'Hare, Rolling Stone, 2024