Putsata Reang is an author, educator, journalist and public speaker whose debut memoir, “Ma and Me” (MCD/FSG May 2022) was a recipient of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award for nonfiction and a finalist for the 2026 Bechtel Prize, and 2023 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Washington State Book Award and Lambda Literary Award. Her writing has appeared in national and international publications including the New York Times, Ms magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, Politico, and the Guardian.

She has lived and worked in more than a dozen countries including Cambodia, Afghanistan and Thailand to help widen the ecosystem of independent media, and capture impact narratives for international organizations including various United Nations programs. Putsata is an alum of Hedgebrook, Mineral School and Kimmel Harding Nelson residencies, and was a fellow of the Jack Straw writers program.

In 2005, she was awarded an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship that took her back to her homeland, Cambodia, to report on landless farmers. Her keynote addresses at college campuses, conferences and private and public institutions focus on narrative as an enduring tool to overcome erasure.