Holly Gleason Named LA Press Club’s Entertainment Journalist Of The Year

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Holly Gleason

Nashville-based journalist Holly Gleason has won the prestigious overall Entertainment Journalist of the Year award at the LA Press Club’s recent annual Southern California Journalism Awards.

In addition to taking the top entertainment prize, Gleason won in the Music Criticism (all platforms) and Entertainment News (Magazine) categories, with the latter awarded for Pollstar’s “Why Dolly Parton Belongs in the Rock Hall” piece. She also received two second place awards for Entertainment Feature and Best Arts Commentary for Pollstar’s “How Miranda Lambert Danced in the Fire and Became a Global Superstar” and a Library of Congress National Registry of Song essay on “Stand By Your Man.”

“It was shocking on so many levels,” Gleason says. “Los Angeles is the epicenter of the entertainment industry. I came of age as a writer and critic out here, writing for Rolling Stone, the LA Times, Musician, Bsm, Creem and so many more, so I know how high the bar is set here—and how much it takes to even be in the conversation. Telling the stories of women in music, especially country music, has been important to me always. To see Dolly, Miranda and Tammy be recognized in this room is amazing!

“And criticism is something I’ve always felt is important—not to say how music sounds, but to create context and understanding,” she adds. “There are so many friends, peers and writers I admire among the nominees. It is wonderful to be in their company. At a time when music writing is more lifestyle than addressing the recording, writing, touring or performing, it’s thrilling to be counted among so much work of this caliber.”

In a night that saw all platforms of journalism across hard news, science, sports, politics and various forms of entertainment coverage recognized, the event drew a record of over 2,300 entries.

Gleason is an esteemed author, journalist and academic whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Times, Musician, Variety, Oxford American, Playboy, Interview and Miami Herald. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame/Case Western Reserve Fellow is also the 2022 LA Press Club’s Entertainment Journalist of the Year, the 2019 CMA Media Achievement Award winner, and creator/contributor of the 2018 Belmont Book Award-winning Woman Walk The Line: How The Women of Country Music Changed Our Life.

She recently co-authored Miranda Lambert’s New York Times best-seller Y’All Eat Yet: Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin Kitchen, and her latest book, Prine on Prine: Interviews & Encounters, will be published by Chicago Review Press in September.

Lorie Hollabaugh
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