Abigail Pesta is a writer based in New York and the Editorial Director, Women in the World, for Newsweek magazine and The Daily Beast. She has lived and worked around the world, from London to Hong Kong.

Her investigative and feature reporting has been published in national magazines and newspapers including Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, Glamour and The New York Times.

Read Abby's short stories 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.

At Newsweek and The Daily Beast, Abby oversees global women's coverage and writes and edits news and features. Previously she was the Editor-at-Large at Marie Claire magazine. Before that, she was an Articles Editor at Glamour. She has also worked as a News Editor at The Wall Street Journal and still occasionally writes for the Journal.

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 and a funny skateboarding mail guy in New York City. She has written about honor killings in America, accidental sex offenders, expatriates, entrepreneurs, jailbirds, danger junkies 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 individuals including Michelle Obama, Reese Witherspoon, ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews, Donatella Versace, Christy Turlington, Molly Sims, Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, Queen Noor of Jordan, politico wife Jenny Sanford, Diane von Furstenburg, Alicia Keys, Natasha Bedingfield, model and activist Alek Wek, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, supermodels Helena Christensen and Petra Nemcova, and Jessica Lynch, the young American soldier who was taken captive in Iraq.

As an editor, Abby has worked with writers including Lucette Lagnado, author of "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit," Asra Nomani, author of "Standing Alone in Mecca," and Mariane Pearl, author of "A Mighty Heart," whom Abby recruited to Glamour to write a monthly column, "Global Diary." Abby shared a prestigious National Headliner Award for her editor's role.

She has received a Front Page Award for magazine feature writing from the Newswomen's Club of New York, a Jane Cunningham Croly Award for excellence in journalism from the General Federation of Women's Clubs, two Exceptional Merit in Media Awards from the National Women's Political Caucus and a silver FOLIO Eddie Award for feature writing. She was a finalist for a South Asian Journalists Association award and a Min Editorial Award.

Abby has lived and worked as a journalist in New York, Hong Kong and London.

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