Lauren A. Spates is a freelance journalist looking to break into full-time investigative narrative journalism after six years juggling part-time reporting and stay-at-home motherhood.
Investigative Reporters and Editors' (IRE) recently recognized Lauren with its 2023 Book of the Year award for her work as contributing author and editor on "Inflamed: Abandonment, Heroism, and Outrage in Wine Country's Deadliest Firestorm."
"Inflamed" also won the National Indie Excellence Award for regional nonfiction and was a finalist in the group's aging and caregiving category. The book was a general nonfiction finalist in the Northern California Book Awards.
A feature story Lauren voiced and produced for Wonderland Radio Hour contributed to the show’s “Camp Meeker” episode that won NETA’s 2025 Public Media Award in its Society & Culture category. The feature focused on the history of summer camps along Sonoma County’s famed Bohemian Highway.
Lauren's work has been published in The Press Democrat and The Napa Valley Register, on KRCB/NorCal Public Media and through NPR, which syndicated her podcast "Chronic Catastrophe." The podcast, developed thanks to a grant from California Humanities, focused on what living in an area with unceasing natural disasters does to the mind, body and spirit. Lauren co-wrote and co-produced multiple episodes; she voiced the trailer and episode 2, “The Body.” She and her co-producers appeared on KQED “Forum” to discuss their findings.
Her focus is all things Sonoma and Napa County, particularly politics, public safety and the environment. She also reports on community news and general features.
Lauren earned her journalism degree from the University of Maryland's Philip Merrill College of Journalism but worked briefly in public relations after graduating. She then transitioned to B2B sales for the world’s largest mailing and shipping solutions company, selling hardware and software to improve workflows for applying postage, ensuring carrier compliance, improving deliverability, tracking mailpieces and packages, and implementing accurate accounting.
Her portfolio included major and government accounts on both the east and west coasts, where she deployed a consultative sales strategy the company hoped to emulate in other markets.
Thanks to her time working with accounts of this scale, Lauren can interview effectively to uncover key details, understand bid processes, handle public records, appreciate formal approval workflows, and earn stakeholders’ trust — all of which comes in handy when reporting.
Upon leaving the sales world, Lauren started her own business conducting genealogical research and narrative non-fiction writing for private clients. She traveled across the U.S. to access historical records in courthouses, museums and family living rooms, after which she crossed those records with history and family lore to bring her clients’ ancestors alive. This work required meticulous organization, reliable recall and a relentless drive to uncover the truth (as well as a knack for reading old cursive).
It was during this period Lauren realized investigative long-form writing was her calling.
To refresh her portfolio and get a job as a journalist — after more than a decade away from the field — Lauren enrolled in Santa Rosa Junior College, where she won multiple state writing awards while writing and editing for The Oak Leaf, supported the student newsroom's back-end operation and assisted the journalism program's adviser.
Lauren lives in west Sonoma County's wild and wooly redwood forest with her husband and their bicycle-loving kiddo. Lauren is a newshound, bookworm, Springer Spaniel lover, Maryland Terrapins fan, knit and crochet enthusiast, and a former ACC and NFL cheerleader.
