Amanda Petrusich

Early life

Petrusich grew up as the child of two public school teachers. She attended the College of William & Mary, where she was co-editor-in-chief of the William and Mary Review and a reviewer for The Flat Hat, the college's campus newspaper. She graduated with a B.A. in English and film studies in 2000, then earned a master's in nonfiction writing from Columbia University in 2003.

Career

Petrusich has written for The New York Times, Pitchfork Media and Paste. Petrusich has been a staff writer at Pitchfork Media since 2003. She is the author of Pink Moon, a book on Nick Drake's album of the same name for the 33 1/3 music series, and a 2008 book called It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music, which Joe Boyd described in The Guardian as "a terrific piece of travel writing...a tour through the roots of American rural music." Petrusich also wrote a book on record collecting called Do Not Sell At Any Price: The Wild, Obsessive Hunt for the World's Rarest 78rpm Records.

Petrusich serves as clinical assistant professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU. She began teaching at NYU in 2010 and joined the full-time faculty in 2015.

Naming her to its 2016 list of "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture," Brooklyn Magazine described Petrusich as "a towering force of grace and encouragement in New York music and criticism circles. Between mentoring emerging voices and writing with discernment about music’s most important figures, Petrusich is helping shape Brooklyn culture from the ground up."

Petrusich won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016.

Personal life

Petrusich is married and lives in Brooklyn.