Julia Duin

Julia Duin (pronounced Deen) is a Seattle-based journalist who was Newsweek’s contributing editor for religion from 2021-early 2023. She was an assistant national editor and religion editor for the Washington Times for more than 14 years and also worked stints at the Houston Chronicle and several other newspapers. During the 2014-2015 academic year, she occupied the Snedden Chair as a journalism professor at the University of Alaska/Fairbanks, after which she joined the Washington Post Talent Network as contributing writer for travel, religion and general features. She specializes in interesting women in religion, such as her award-winning profile of Nadia Bolz-Weber in the December 2014 issue of More magazine; her nearly 6,000-word profile on President Trump’s advisor Paula White in the Washington Post Sunday Magazine in November 2017; and her piece on Delilah Rene, the most famous woman in American radio, for the Seattle Times in April 2019. She’s a three-time Wilbur Award winner (from the Religion Communicators Council) for her magazine and newspaper features and in 2018 was one of five recipients (out of about 720 entrants) of the Iceland Writer’s Retreat Alumni Award. In 2020, she was one of 10 reporters who received grants from the Religion News Foundation to develop unusual religion stories, which is what led to her 2021 trip to Iceland and Greenland for stories on Arctic religion. Julia has published seven books, one of the latest being In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in the Age of Social Media, a nonfiction work about 20-something Appalachian Pentecostal serpent handlers who use Facebook to publicize their exploits. She has master’s degrees in journalism and religion.