Hello!

I’m a journalist, host and producer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I tend to notice things others don’t — or aren’t comfortable looking at. That instinct took me from teaching English in Shizuoka, Japan, where I produced my first podcast series, to Lucknow, India, where I studied Urdu and started freelancing for international outlets as a local reporter with a global eye.

It’s driven over a decade of independent reporting on caste, identity and power in the United States, published in Wired, Harper’s, The Atlantic, Mother Jones, BBC World Service, 99% Invisible and two dozen other outlets. I report and produce across print, audio and visual media — and I’m drawn to narrative, investigative and documentary stories that make people rethink what they know.

I’m currently developing a documentary podcast supported by California Humanities and reporting a new investigation with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism. For several years, I taught audio storytelling and produced Uncuffed, an award-winning podcast made by incarcerated people in California prisons in collaboration with KALW Public Media.

My reporting has also been supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, AAJA, SAJA and others.

My personal podcast and newsletter is Loitering, named after a South Asian women’s movement reclaiming the right to take up space. I’m still working on that myself. ✨

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Please feel free to reach out with tips, ideas, opportunities or a hello.

• @sonipaul on most social media,
• Signal: Ask,
• or fill out the form below.