Abigail Pesta is an award-winning journalist who has lived and worked around the world, including New York, London and Hong Kong. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.

Her investigative and feature reporting has been published in national magazines and newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Marie Claire, The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Newsweek and The Daily Beast. She is a vice president of the Overseas Press Club in New York.

Her investigative report on the "honor killing" of a young woman in Arizona was adapted into an hour-long episode of "48 Hours" on CBS News, featuring interviews with Abby discussing her findings. For The Wall Street Journal she currently writes "A-heds," the offbeat articles that are a defining feature of the Journal's front page.

Read Abby's short fiction at Fine Words Butter No Parsnips, a website of art and fiction produced in collaboration with Maureen O'Hara Pesta, John Pesta and Jesse Pesta.

Abby has worked as a news and features editor and writer at publications including The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Glamour, Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Currently for The Wall Street Journal she writes offbeat features for the front page about hairdo archaeologists and useless machines.

She has profiled former sex slaves in Cambodia, college students in the U.S. who chase Pakistani terrorists, an American teenager imprisoned for high-school sex, a funny skateboarding mail guy in New York City, a teen girl who tweeted the names of her attackers and a sex slave turned radio host. She has written about honor killings in America, accidental sex offenders, cyberstalkers, forced marriage, the "womb wars," a cancer charity's questionable spending, rape-kit pileups, Scientology kids, jailbirds, fearless fathers in Afghanistan and women who beat incurable diseases. She interviewed a teacher with a naughty past, a woman who triumphed over a runaway husband/fraudster and a New Yorker who saved two young Russian women from being forced into sexual slavery on Coney Island.

Abby has interviewed a wide range of newsmakers including Michelle Obama, Reese Witherspoon, jazz phenom Esperanza Spalding, embattled ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews, designer Donatella Versace, model and activist Christy Turlington, designer Diane von Furstenberg, singer Alicia Keys and Jessica Lynch, the young American soldier who was taken captive in Iraq.

Abby has received honors including a New York Press Club Award for magazine feature reporting, a National Headliner Award for magazine reporting, a Front Page Award for magazine feature writing from the Newswomen's Club of New York, two Jane Cunningham Croly Awards for excellence in journalism, three Exceptional Merit in Media Awards from the National Women's Political Caucus, a PASS Award from the National Council on Crime & Delinquency for magazine reporting, a Clarion Award from the Association for Women in Communications for magazine feature writing and a silver FOLIO Eddie Award for feature writing.

Abby shared a National Headliner Award with Mariane Pearl, author of the book "A Mighty Heart," for her role as editor of a series of columns Mariane wrote for Glamour.

In addition, she was a finalist for a Deadline Club Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, a South Asian Journalists Association award and a Min Editorial Award.

Abby has discussed her reporting on media outlets including CBS News, the BBC, CNBC and Beast TV, among others.

Selected video clips:

♦ A Schoolgirl, Targeted by the Taliban: When a Pakistani youth is shot in the head on a school bus, Angelina Jolie carries her torch.

♦ The Girl Who Tweeted Rape: A Kentucky teen tweets the names of two boys who sexually assaulted her, defying a judge--and upending the courts.

♦ An American Honor Killing: Clip from a "48 Hours" feature based on Abby's profile of a girl killed by her dad.

♦ Mission: Solve 11,000 Rapes: Detroit prosecutor Kym Worthy plows through a warehouse of rape kits--long ignored by the police--to put predators behind bars.

♦ America's Most Hated Author: A novelist infuriates parents by writing entire books in the language of text messages.

♦ Escape from Scientology's "Sea Org": Astra Woodcraft leaves behind a wild childhood in the church's militant religious order, risking everything to break free.

♦ Life After a Massacre in Africa: A girl survives a night of machete-wielding madmen, and turns tragedy into art.

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Twitter: @abigailpesta

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