Paula Mejía (she/her) is a Colombian American writer and editor based in Los Angeles, California. 

She is a Contributing Culture Editor at SFGate, covering subcultures in Los Angeles, and a culture writer and editor for hire. Paula also teaches a graduate-level arts journalism course at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Previously, she was the Arts and Entertainment editor at The Los Angeles Times, a Senior Editor at Texas Monthly, a reporter for WNYC/Gothamist, and an editor at Atlas Obscura.

Paula is an intrepid arts and culture writer who’s delved into demolition derbies, literary hoaxes, the streaming economy, dog shows, distortion pedals, live oak trees, scammers, tumbleweeds as home decor, cultural phenomena, the Internet, skateboarding and other ephemera for the likes of The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, NPR Music, Oxford American, The Paris Review, Rolling Stone, Victory Journal and other print and digital publications. Paula is also a co-founding editor of NPR Music's Turning the Tables (which won a 2018 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media). She has been featured on MSNBC, BBC, Texas Standard, NPR’s All Things Considered, Cheat! and It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders.

Paula has written several episodes of the Scamfluencers podcast, hosted the first season of Sony’s podcast The Opus, and has produced radio shows for Red Bull Music Academy. She DJs here and there, most recently for The Lot Radio and KTRU Rice Radio.

Paula’s first book — about The Jesus and Mary Chain’s ‘Psychocandy’ — was published October 2016 for Bloomsbury Press, as a part of their 33 1/3 series. 

She is currently on the Executive Committee of the MoPop Conference, and mentor rising journalists as part of the Latinas in Journalism Mentorship program and ASME Next.