Hello! I'm a contributing editor at Washingtonian magazine, a former columnist for the Boston Globe Ideas section, and a former editor at Foreign Policy and the New Republic, as well as Street Sense, D.C.’s homeless newspaper, where I co-founded and then for years co-edited the opinion section. I write about culture, politics, gender, and LGBTQ+ issues for the New York Times, Washington Post, Elle, Slate, the Atlantic, and other places. Recent favorites include this story for the Washington Post magazine on a secret Facebook group founded by Christian moms of LGBTQ+ kids to help other parents advocate for their queer children and this Washingtonian profile of a pair of married activists who fled homophobia in Putin’s Russia. My Washingtonian feature on the downfall of former LGBTQ+ icon Ruby Corado was recently a finalist for the reporting award from the City and Regional Magazines Association.
I’ve taught undergrads in Georgetown’s journalism program and George Washington University’s writing department. I’m also a recent graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars with an MFA in fiction. My work has been supported with grants from Bennington College, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Wesleyan Writers’ Conference; short stories have recently earned mention in the Missouri Review Editor’s Prize and the Zoetrope All-Story Contest.
They/them. Say hi at brittpeterson2@gmail.com. Represented by Julia Kardon at HG Literary.