Violet Blue

Author and journalist

Violet Blue

Author and journalist

Violet Blue is a six-time Independent Publisher Book Award ("IPPY") winning investigative journalist on cybersecurity, Covid-19, privacy, and human rights, having bylined for outlets including O The Oprah Magazine, Engadget, Financial Times, CNN, CBS News, San Francisco Chronicle, Popular Science, Yahoo News, and many others.

Ms. Blue's books have sold over 2.2 million copies and have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Russian. Her most notable book appearance was on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Ms. Blue’s most notable charity contribution was donation of over 200,000 sales of The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, and the American Civil Liberties Union, raising £3.7m for migrant charities.

Guardian UK called Ms. Blue, "One of the leading figures in tech writing in the world."

She is a member of the Internet Press Guild, The Authors Guild, The New Zealand Society of Authors, the International Federation of Journalists, PEN, the World Health Network, and Advisor to online legal privacy resource Without My Consent.

Her newest book A Fish Has No Word For Water won 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards GOLD,is a National Indie Book Awards 2023 Finalist, a 2023 Kindle Book Awards Winner, and a Publishers Weekly BookLife Editor's Pick, and received 9.75 (out of 10) in thePublishers Weekly BookLife Prize contest. KIRKUS called it “Gripping.” BookLife/Publisher's Weekly describes it as a “Superb memoir” with "Sharp dialogue, incisive observations, and polished prose."

Blue's book on personal digital privacy and security, The Smart Girl’s Guide to Privacy, was praised by ELLE Magazine as, “An illuminating handbook for women.” Ingram Collection Development Librarian Becky Walton wrote, “Highly recommended for public and school libraries, as well as social science and technology classes.”

Violet has presented two Google Tech Talks, she is a crisis counselor, a harm reduction educator and a media crisis NGO trainer.

Ms. Blue's father was a nuclear engineer and mother was a defense engineer for the US government. Blue is the only surviving member of her family and grew up homeless on the streets of San Francisco.