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Mary O’Hara

Mary O’Hara is an award-winning journalist, author and producer. Her journalism appears in publications including the Guardian and Mosaic Science. She is the author of two books: The Shame Game: Overturning the toxic poverty narrative (2020) & Austerity Bites: A journey to the sharp end of cuts in the UK (2014) and is founder of the multi-platform anti-poverty initiative, Project Twist-It. She is a contributor to the book, The Violence of Austerity (Pluto Press 2017) and others including Council Skies by the artist, Pete McKee and Vulnerable Consumers and the Law, Routledge (2021).

Mary has directed/produced short films, run a comedy club, been an Alistair Cooke Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley and a producer and consultant on Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness. In 2020 she was named Best Foreign Columnist at the Southern California Journalism Awards for her Guardian column, Lesson From America. In 2021 she will be a contributor to the anthology of working class writers, Common Gossip, edited by Natasha Carthew. She is on the board of the charity, Arts Emergency, is the founder and chair of the David Nobbs Memorial Trust, and a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

Summer Conference Event
 — Talk

Reporting Poverty: Narratives Around Need

Poverty and inequality sit at the heart of a huge range of issues in both the US and UK and yet so much of journalism features at best a superficial view, at worst exploitation and condemnation of people experiencing poverty.
Founder at Project Twist-It
www.projecttwistit.com
@ProjectTwistIT
@maryohara1