Julia Prodis Sulek is a Bay Area News Group reporter specializing in breaking news and narrative storytelling at her hometown paper, the Mercury News, and the East Bay Times. She has covered everything from plane crashes to presidential campaigns, murder trials to NBA Finals and nearly every major wildfire in Northern California for the past decade. She was part of the team that won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for coverage of Oakland’s Ghost Ship fire and has been a Pulitzer finalist in feature writing. She wrote an award-winning six-part narrative series “Hanging: the mysterious case of the boy in the barn,” and narrated a companion podcast. Before joining the Mercury News, she worked for The Associated Press in Cheyenne, Detroit and Dallas. She is a
graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, with BS degree in journalism.
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Language:
French (Some)
Affiliation: Board member, Journalism Advisory Board, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
Affiliation Parent Organization: Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo Journalism Department
Awards:
Pulitzer Prize (2017 - Staff award for breaking news coverage of the fatal "Ghost Ship" fire in Oakland), Pulitzer Prize finalist (1997 - For a trio of vivid stories about three teenagers on a deadly journey, a photograph from the Oklahoma City bombing, and a vacuum cleaner that catches prairie dogs.), Sigma Delta Chi Award for feature writiing (2017 - For Hanging: The Mysterious Case of the Boy in the Barn), Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards (2007 - For a story that followed a blanket from the donor, who gave it to the Sacred Heart Community Service charity, to the recipient, who took it home to warm her children.)
Expertise: Breaking news, narrative writing, California's wildfires and drought and other natural disasters, state and national politics, crime and other trending topics
