Helen Thorpe is a journalist, a nonfiction author, and a writing instructor. She began her journalism career as an assistant to the newsroom at The New York Observer, then became a full-time reporter for that publication. She left to join an in-house team of contributors to “Talk of the Town” at The New Yorker, and later she joined the staff of Texas Monthly, where she wrote feature stories. She has also written on a freelance basis for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Westword, and 5280.

She is the author of Just Like Us, Soldier Girls, and The Newcomers. In these works of narrative nonfiction, she shares the stories of people who have moved between countries: immigrants in search of legal status, veterans returning from foreign conflicts, and refugees seeking safe haven. She has also published a collection of essays about her family’s moves from Ireland to England and then the United States, and the attempt to maintain ties with aunts, uncles and cousins across the Atlantic.

Thorpe teaches narrative nonfiction at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is also a visiting professor at Regis University’s Mile High MFA program. She has previously served as a visiting professor in the journalism programs at Colorado College and Princeton University.

Her forthcoming book, Writing for Delta, will be published by Journey Institute Press in December of 2026.